


With a Crown Stained Scarlet

by acrylic_sunsets



Category: Glee
Genre: Forbidden Love, King - Freeform, M/M, Politics, Romance, Royalty, Slow Burn, Suspense, kingdom - Freeform, royal guard, royal intrigue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24290230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acrylic_sunsets/pseuds/acrylic_sunsets
Summary: "And again those two words, the two words that the former King had whispered to him, had struggled through his failing breath to deliver, the two words that had been his last dying plea echoed in Sebastian's head: 'Protect him.' Sebastian had not had to ask who the King meant. 'You have my word,' he had whispered back." A royal intrigue Glee AU where Kurt is King, and Sebastian is a member of the Royal Guard
Relationships: Kurt Hummel/Sebastian Smythe
Comments: 68
Kudos: 48





	1. A Warning

**Author's Note:**

> Though there is a lot of plot concerning political intrigue (apologies for any unintentional silliness), this story is at heart a romance and a Kurtbastian one at that. Also, all excerpts/quotes/references to literature in this piece are purely fictional and exist only in my mind and my imaginary kingdom. Thank you for reading, and reviews are always greatly appreciated!

_“With a crown stained scarlet, the mighty king rules_

_And protects at all cost his imperial jewels._

_[…_ _…] At the end of his reign,_ _shall his robes be washed red,_

_Whether blood from his foes or his own crownéd head_

_And alone is determined his sepulchral plaque_

_By if the sword’s found in his hands or his back.”_

\- Excerpt from _The Lonely King’s Ballad_ , Anonymous

**Chapter 1: A Warning**

Their voices, like always, were gravelly and monotonous, the hunched forms of the Ministers that were gathered around the table casting long shadows through the flickering candlelight.

The nights that Sebastian was assigned to these meetings were generally tedious and dragging. Most often he would let the words blur into a singsong rumble, up and down in a shapeless hum while his mind wandered to other things, but today, he listened. It was the King's first official advisory conference, and Sebastian had an interest in observing it.

Over the past month, he had already heard varying opinions on how the new King would fare. Some, those who knew his father had already begun training him from a young age, plying him with texts on philosophy, history, and politics, said that he stood a good chance of maturing, within a few years, into a ruler as capable and fastidious as his father had been.

There were others, of course, who were less optimistic.

As Sebastian observed the King now, in the midst of his first conference, he wondered himself what to expect of him – whether he would be able to follow all of the technical details, whether he would be aware of the political undercurrents, whether he might have any ideas of his own to contribute. It would be fairly swift, Sebastian thought, once the King started speaking, to judge how clever, how capable of a ruler he had the potential to be.

Thus far, however, the King had largely remained silent as the Ministers around him droned on in turns, nodding solemnly as each listed the current state of affairs of the kingdom in their area of expertise. Only a few times had he interrupted to ask a question, and from those it had been difficult to tell how aptly the King was following the discussion. In the candlelight, the King's smooth, clear face was starkly visible in the candlelight, and, contrasted against the greying beards of all the gathered Ministers, served to lay bare how young he truly was.

The Minister currently speaking was explaining the recent acquisition of the Nenton region to the far North, how they were waiting now for their taxes to arrive by the armored envoy they had sent several months prior. He had begun to delve deeply into details of the kingdom's complex schemes of taxing, tithing, and tariffing.

As the Minister paused to retrieve some parchment, Sebastian watched the Chancellor lean over to the King's shoulder and whisper something in his ear. With his gestures, it seemed that he was further explaining something in the Minister's lecture, but the King waved him off with a hand as the Minister began to speak again.

The Chancellor looked suitably chastened, returning to his stone-faced vigil at the King's side, but Sebastian noticed the brief quirk of irritation that passed across his features.

Sebastian himself had to exert a fair amount of effort to mask his true opinions of the Chancellor, making certain to smooth over his distaste whenever he was assigned to his Guard. As the King's second-in-command, the Chancellor was given almost the same protection as the King himself. Sebastian had had many nights to practice keeping the repulsion off of his face while he watched the Chancellor gorge rowdily on his supper, jowls wobbling with crumbs and spittle, often in the presence of female company.

"What percent of these local collections are being funneled into communal restorations?" The King was pointing to something on the parchment that the Minister had produced.

"Yes, my Liege, you see, the restoration efforts are composed of the allocations that come from, in part - "

"What percent?" the King cut in sharply, blue eyes burrowing into the Minister. For the first time that night, Sebastian saw in his manner a glimpse of the King's father - that familiar directness, the refusal to suffer fools or havering.

"Yes, my Liege, I would need, I would need some time to complete these calculations, you see, we do not generally track the exact amount of -"

"Have it prepared by the next conference, then," the King said dismissively. "And I would also like to see the allocations for the tithes that are coming in."

"Well, of course you understand, those go directly to the Church, and we may not -"

"I should not think the Church will begrudge us knowledge of their financial affairs." The King's voice was quiet - Sebastian had not yet gotten used to its musical high pitch or its unusual softness - but invariably firm.

"Yes, of course, my Liege. I will have it prepared."

"Is that all?" the King seemed to be directing the question to all the Ministers. When no one stepped forward to reply, he continued. "If so, I should like to keep these documents to read over in greater detail. That way I might contribute more at our next conference."

The Ministers surreptitiously shuffled as glances were exchanged, and Sebastian could surmise what they were thinking. Most times the conferences concluded with the King seeking advice on proposals, meting out orders, or at the very least sharing his opinions on the state of affairs. Being his first, it was perhaps excusable that he had no extensive plans to present, but such an abrupt conclusion was a poor omen of their new King. Sebastian himself, to his own surprise, felt a pang of disappointment. Without even realizing, it seemed he had begun to nurse hopes that the King would be a testament to his upbringing and training, that they might find in the new King a man worthy of the stature of his father.

But, after all, as the head of the Guard had jeered over their supper last night, reading books on kingdoms was not quite the same as ruling one.

"There is one more thing, King Hummel," the Chancellor's nasal, ragged voice broke through the silence. The Chancellor was the only one that was allowed to refer to the King directly by his title. With the former King, Sebastian remembered, the Chancellor had showed simpering deference, murmuring “my Liege” just as all the other Ministers did, but it seemed he would not be extending this courtesy to his son.

"At one of the last private conferences I shared with your father, we discussed in some detail the temporary redirection of a portion of our treasury funds towards Lord Kliyen's estate. His trade agreements have been an invaluable asset to the kingdom, and a significant portion of our local imports come through his channel. However, with the war raging in the Bayen region, many Bayenese imports have stalled, and he requires a small sum to restore the flow of his supplies.

“These funds would, of course, be purely temporary. Your father was most adamant, however, that it was a necessary measure to take in order to preserve the import relations that we have taken such pains to establish."

It was with difficulty that Sebastian prevented himself from any visible reaction to this, largely because he knew that every last word that had just spewed from the Chancellor's mouth was a bare-faced lie. Sebastian had been one of the Guards at the former King's last private conference with the Chancellor, and there had been no talk of Lord Kliyen. What was more, Sebastian knew the Chancellor would not have dared even bring up the idea of extending funds to Lord Kliyen, due to the King's rather unhidden hatred of the dubious noble. Lord Kliyen was an unpleasant man, and, as the old King had told Sebastian once in confidence, notorious for how quickly money slipped through his hands.

Sebastian waited for one of the Ministers to step forward, to either deny the Chancellor's words or to more subtly stonewall the proposition through protest over financial repercussions, but they all remained silent, eyes fixed on the King.

The King's gaze as he listened was contemplative. For several seconds after the Chancellor finished speaking, the only sound was the rustle of robes and the crackle of the fire. Finally, he spoke.

"I'm afraid I will not be much aid in this. I have not yet had much time to learn of our kingdom's trade agreements, or the imports affected by the Bayen war."

"No, of course, my King," the Chancellor's voice was tinged with satisfaction, "and I should not expect you to understand such complexities of our kingdom so quickly. I meant, of course, that I should handle the arrangements myself, in conjunction of course, with Minister Oftel."

Sebastian did not miss the Chancellor's inclusion of himself with the phrasing of "our kingdom," but if the King noticed the slip, he gave no sign. Minister Oftel, a stooped, rather wrinkled man, was looking at the King patiently for either affirmation or refusal.

"I see," the King said. "Well, in that case, and assuming this has, as you have said, been approved by my father, then you may execute this as you see fit."

"Thank you, King Hummel," the Chancellor bowed, nowhere near as low as he had bowed to the King's father. "I believe this conference may then be adjourned."

Again, Sebastian had to restrain himself from bristling. Adjourning the conference by tradition was always the King's right. Again, if the King noticed this gesture of disrespect, he gave no sign of it, simply accepting the hands of each Minister as they departed with a stately nod.

"Guards," the Chancellor commanded, and two slipped from their posts along the wall to accompany him to his chambers. The King looked in the direction of the remaining Guards, and Sebastian was quick to slip from the wall to join his side. The King's left became flanked by Septimus, a seasoned, largely private Guard that had spent more than twenty years in the King's service. In fact, most of the Guards in the room were at least ten years Sebastian's senior. Sebastian was by far was the youngest of the elite few who were allowed to sit in on conferences and directly protect high members of royalty, but the former King had handpicked him to be in the Primary Guard, and he supposed until the new King said otherwise, he was entitled to remain in his position.

Septimus held the door open and Sebastian led the King out into the hall.

"Shall I, my Liege?" Sebastian gestured to the documents that the King was balancing in his arms.

"I can manage, thank you," the King said, eyes trained on the document at the top of the stack. "And I'll grant that you are more versed in the procedures of protection than I am, but I would imagine for your duties it should be advisable for you to have your hands unburdened."

He glanced up at Sebastian for a moment, eyes flashing blue and unreadable, before returning his attention to the document as the three of them began their walk down the hall, Sebastian leading the way.

The King was right in so far that it was not generally acceptable for Guards to carry royals’ belongings like servants, but Sebastian had done it so often for the King’s father as they walked, accepting one document after another as he finished scanning each one, that he had asked the question purely out of custom.

Some of those times, the former King had requested to be accompanied only by Sebastian, breaking the accepted rule that Guards must always be assigned in pairs. It was those times, however, that the old King had spoken more openly with him, apprising him of the unspoken politics of a specific proposition, telling him vaguely of certain plans he was considering.

Now they walked in silence, their footsteps echoing through the empty halls as Sebastian navigated his way to the King's bedchambers. Though it was customary to move to the Royal Suite upon coronation, the King had remained in the same one he had had as a Prince, leaving his father's untouched.

And now the Prince was a King, coronated only a week after burying his father - and painfully young. His posture was always regal, his words firm, but even this could not hide how fresh-faced, how inexperienced he was – and yet all around him expected him to become a fully-fledged ruler, an equal to his father.

Sebastian himself had expected it, but now he keenly felt how unlikely it would have been, how unfair it was to expect this boy to turn into an adept statesman while he was still recovering from grief, just a few weeks past his eighteenth birthday.

As they walked, all Sebastian could focus on were the last words that the old King had whispered to him. It had been one of those rare moments in which the old man had regained clarity as he had lain in his bed writhing, muttering babble - perhaps even one of his last moments of clarity. Sebastian still clearly remembered how his eyes had blinked open, the deep blue suddenly free of haze, how he had beckoned Sebastian over to him. Only two words, it had been, but through them a monumental duty conferred onto him.

The decision whether or not to accept that duty was another matter entirely, and not yet one that Sebastian had made.

Before he could think better of it, Sebastian stopped short so abruptly that the King had no time to avoid a collision with him. Within a split second, Sebastian had already turned around to steady him, but it was too late for the stack of parchments, which had begun their descent to the floor.

"Forgive me, my Liege," Sebastian said as the King stared back at him sharply. Septimus already had one hand on the hilt of his sword, a Guard’s reflex to any unexpected motion.

"What has happened?"

"Nothing, my Liege. I thought I saw something. My apologies." The King spared him another second's appraising look before leaning down and beginning to gather the scattered documents.

"Allow me, my Liege."

With a quick glance at Septimus, Sebastian knelt down beside the King, rustling loose parchment into an untidy stack. As he leaned forward to grasp a parchment near the King's knee, he placed his face near the King's ear, at an angle where he was certain Septimus would not see his lips move.

"Your father had no plans to pay Lord Kliyen."

He made sure his whisper was low, barely perceptible, but from the quick meeting of the King's eyes with his, he knew he had been heard.

In a few seconds more the remaining documents were gathered, and they both stood. The King paid Sebastian no more attention, instead turning to Septimus.

"Perhaps you might lead from this point. That way, should any shadows jump to the attention of our young Guard here, I will not be in risk of losing all my papers again."

Septimus nodded once and stepped forward, shooting Sebastian a glance that was a mixture of disapproval and warning. Sebastian quietly acquiesced, taking up the rear as they made the rest of the way to the bedchambers without any more incident.

The door of the bedchambers was opened by a man that Sebastian recognized as the King's esquire, Henry, the same one he had had as a prince. The night Guards were already in place, flanking either side of the door. The King, pausing on the threshold, turned back to Sebastian and Septimus.

For the briefest moment his eyes lingered on Sebastian, a stormy blue gleaming keenly, and in that moment Sebastian could see that he was indeed his father's son - could see a strength and determination roiling inside him, hidden beneath the soft voice and the delicate face.

"Thank you," the King said, but his eyes were no longer on Sebastian, and after another moment his esquire had already shut the door behind him.

And again those two words, the two words that the former King had whispered to him, had struggled through his failing breath to deliver, the two words that had been his last dying plea again echoed in Sebastian’s head: _“Protect him.”_

Sebastian had not had to ask who the King meant. “You have my word,” he had whispered back.

* * *

Sounds of boisterous revelry filtered down the cavernous halls, through the curves of the gilt, framed doors.

Where Sebastian stood near the door of the library, he could just hear the faint wisp of music that was playing, the distant roaring of raucous laughter.

“Close the door, please.”

The King’s soft voice carried from the table where he was sitting, poring over the first of a thick stack of books that sat on the chair beside him.

Orin, the other Guard in the room, moved to shut the door, and then resumed his post once more. Though his face was expressionless, Sebastian knew there was resentment broiling beneath the calm veneer, bitterness at being one of the only top Guards to miss the Chancellor’s feast. When Orin had learnt that morning that he was being assigned to the King’s protection for the evening, he had spent the remainder of the day grumbling under his breath, his piggish face turning increasingly redder.

Now that the door was closed, no more sounds from the feast reached them.

The King gave a sigh of relief, pressing fingers to his temple as he turned a page. “Quiet at last,” he murmured.

From the corner of his eye, Sebastian caught Orin shift fractionally, likely in restlessness. It was true that part of Sebastian shared his fellow Guard’s disappointment of missing the feast, but another part, a more insistent part of him, had jumped, as it always did, at the chance to be in the company of the King, at the opportunity to further observe and scrutinize him. There had already been several times since passing onto him the warning about Lord Kliyen that Sebastian had been assigned to the King’s protection, but the King never gave a sign of recognition, or even of consideration. His eyes skimmed over Sebastian the way they did with all of the other Guards, darting over him as if he were a part of the room’s furniture.

Suddenly, almost as if he were reading his thoughts, the King looked up sharply, but his gaze was not directed at Sebastian.

“Fetch me a book from my quarters. It is entitled _A Utopian Monarchy_ , authored by Michael Cornelion.”

Sebastian saw Orin tense. “Guards must remain with their objects, my Liege.”

“Yes, and I have a Guard with me,” the King waved offhandedly in Sebastian’s direction. “By the time a servant is fetched and sent to retrieve it, I will have no need for it anymore.” At Orin’s frozen posture, the King’s voice tightened imperceptibly. “That was an order, Guardsman.”

Orin unfroze at this, nodding once before slipping from the room. Sebastian made certain the door shut behind him and faced forward again, only to find that the King was studying him intently.

An intense quiet settled over the room. Sebastian bore the King’s gaze dutifully, resisting the instinct that urged him to break the silence.

“Why did you tell me that my father did not wish to finance Lord Kliyen?” When the King finally spoke, his voice was quiet but precise, each word spoken with intense clarity. His eyes held onto Sebastian’s steadfastly.

“Because it is the truth, my Liege.”

“And why did you feel the need to inform me of it?”

Sebastian held the King’s gaze for a moment, searching his face for any sign of what answer was expected from him. It gave him none.

“Because the Chancellor was lying to you, my Liege.”

“Yes,” there was a note of impatience that had entered the King’s voice, “but why did you feel compelled to make this known to me?” The King had closed the book he had been reading and had risen to stand beside the table, marginally closer to Sebastian.

“I thought you might find the information useful, my – “

“Enough,” the King cut in sharply with a raised hand, “of this formal address. For now, speak to me as if I am your peer. Yes?” Sebastian nodded once in acquiescence.

“Good. Now, answer me clearly. What was it that impelled you to breach the risk of inserting yourself into courtroom politics?”

The King had begun walking closer to him but now stopped beside one of the towering bookshelves, one hand resting over the length of the book’s spines.

Sebastian had no sense of whether or not the King’s father had disclosed to his son how Sebastian had come to work for the Royal Guard, or how Sebastian’s father was connected to him. All the same, if he was to fulfill the duty the old King had bestowed on him with his dying breath, there would be no way of concealing the truth from his son. Honesty was the only way he could think to proceed.

“Because your father asked me to protect you.”

Whatever the King had been expecting him to answer, it did not seem to be this. The faintest expression of surprise flitted over his face before his eyes narrowed slightly, a calm expression back in place.

“I see,” he finally said, hand dropping from its resting place on the bookshelf. “And in this duty that has been bestowed on you, this duty of protecting me, you saw it as your obligation to prevent the Chancellor from tricking me, to warn me that I was being deceived?” The entire time that the King spoke, his eyes continued searching Sebastian, scanning his face meticulously.

Before he could think of the consequence of a Guard speaking so straightforwardly to a King, Sebastian answered, his words low and hurried, meeting the King’s gaze head-on.

“The Chancellor is not your friend, you know. Your father barely kept him in line as it was. Now that you have ascended to the throne, he feels he has been given a chance to wrest away your powers for himself. He has already begun testing the waters, planting little signs of disrespect. They are subtle, for now, but if you allow him to continue, he will only begin to challenge you further.”

This time there was no surprise that flitted across the King’s face, but a silence stretched between them for some seconds as his eyes burrowed into Sebastian’s. At long last, he frowned.

“And why should I place my trust in you?”

Sebastian blinked. “Your father did.”

“True. But I am not my father.” The King’s reply was quick, sharp, and his eyes flashed with their stormy blue. “I am a newly coronated King, freshly ascended to my throne. I have found that I have more new enemies than I ever had friends, that I am surrounded by liars and thieves and warmongers that wear the robes and titles of court officials. I cannot even retire to the safety of my own bedchambers because I have grown certain that my esquire is passing on information to the Chancellor. But you – you warn me of the Chancellor’s intentions, you tell me something so starkly obvious that only a blind fool would not see it, and because of that, because you give me your word that you had the trust of my father, for that reason, out of everyone else, it is your advice that I should trust? Is that what you are saying, Guardsman?”

The King had walked ever closer to him over the course of his speech and was now directly in front of him, eyebrow raised in steady challenge.

Sebastian felt his cheeks redden in defiance, felt his voice quaver slightly at the effort of keeping it even. “I did not say you needed to trust me. Only that I shared information with you I thought you might find useful, considering you have shown no intention of putting the Chancellor in his place. And the duty to protect you is for my loyalty to your father, regardless of whether or not you accept it as such.”

They held each other’s stares; Sebastian knew his own gaze was openly fierce and defiant but could not bring himself to tear his eyes away toward the floor. Without any warning, the King blinked, and all of a sudden, the scrutinizing intensity dropped from his face. He took a step back.

“Well, in that case, I thank you. And having warned me of the Chancellor’s duplicitous intentions, you may now consider your obligation to my father having been carried out.” The King had turned on his heel and was now retreating back to his table; his voice had become lofty and offhand. As he sat back down in front of his book, he again leveled at Sebastian his gaze. “You have protected me most dutifully,” he said, his voice now laced with a sarcasm that dropped away as he continued speaking. “But a friendly piece of advice, Guard, is that people like you should generally do all they can to avoid becoming embroiled in political warfare.”

“People like me?” Sebastian asked tightly, the indignation not yet fully cleared from his veins.

“Yes,” the King said, tilting his head to one side. “Disposable people.”

Sebastian felt the anger rush back into his ears instantly; he knew for certain that the King’s father would have never spoken to him like this – _had_ never spoken to him like this. “Disposable?” he asked through clenched teeth as his heart thrummed against his chest.

“Let us be frank, if you catch the dislike of someone important, there could just as easily be another guard standing in your place tomorrow, and no one should bat an eye. People like you, people who are easily replaced, should be careful as to where they place their loyalties and how they show them. In fact,” the King gave him a pointed look, his lips slightly pursed, “it would generally be best for you to not have any loyalties at all.”

Sebastian felt himself inhale sharply through his nose. “I would have thought someone of your breeding might be better equipped than you evidently are at expressing gratitude.”

The King raised an eyebrow; a hint of amusement played in his eyes. “And how would you suggest I might improve my manners?”

“You could ask my name, for a start.”

“And why would I do that, when I do not see myself having any need for it?”

The door swung open, and Orin entered, holding a thinly bound book in his gloved hand. Striding over to where the King was now poring with intent focus over a book, he proffered it.

“I have retrieved it, my Liege.”

“Thank you,” the King said, accepting it absently, and then, as if something had occurred to him, looked up. “What is your name, Guard?”

“Orin, my Liege.”

The King seemed to notice the way Orin tensed. “No need for alarm. I only ask so that I may thank you properly _,_ ” he said, eyes not once flicking to Sebastian, who struggled with keeping the mask of indifference on his face.

“My deepest gratitude, Orin,” the King gestured at the fetched book, and then returned his gaze to the one he had been reading. “You may return to your post now.”


	2. An Offer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and reviews are always very much appreciated!

_“…It has already been established that utopia is an unachievable state for humankind, as humans possess inherent imperfections, while utopia by its very definition is united perfection._

_However – what_ is _achievable is a society that has reached, by some internal or governmental means, its full potential of equilibrium and harmony, a society that exists not in a state of euphoria but contentment. Such a society has fulfilled its potential, has approached the truest state of existence._

_A monarch who achieves such a society shall not be a monarch in the traditional understanding of the role. He shall not view himself as separate, or in any way removed, from his subjects. He shall view all subjects and himself at the same stature, and he shall view his power as a power that has been entrusted to him, not by divine or apt right, but rather by privilege._

_He will not wield this power to his own benefit – it shall not even occur to him to do so. He shall wield this power for the benefit of the greatest subsection of his subjects, and towards the greatest instilment of harmony and prosperity among them._

_For a man to be such a monarch, he must discard all previous notions of royalty and entitlement. He must look at himself, frankly, and admit to himself and to all his subjects, ‘I am but a man. I am but a man with this power, and I shall make the best of my abilities to rule, but I shall undoubtedly err.’ And in this way, his subjects shall be satisfied, and he shall keep as much peace as is possible to sustain...”_

Excerpt from Chapter 2 of _Utopian Monarchy_ , by Michael Cornelion

**Chapter 2: An Offer**

Sebastian awakened to the sharp kick of a boot against his leg.

“Up, Smythe.”

Sitting up groggily, Sebastian heard his back groan as it unbent from its uncomfortable slant against the wooden chairback. Since Guards traded night shifts frequently and sometimes unexpectedly, it was not uncommon to try to get in a few moments of sleep as often as possible in the Guard common room, even in the ten-minute interims between assignments.

Sebastian still had a good twenty minutes before he had to take over the latter half of the night shift, but as it was, Sebastian did not think he had managed more than a few minutes’ doze before being woken by Cyrus’s boot.

“Help Arthur carry these to the yard, boy,” Cyrus said gruffly, as he turned to now indicate with his boot a stack of crates. Cyrus was second only to the Head of the Royal Guard, and Sebastian liked him immensely more than he did the Head, who he found cruel and often unfathomable. Cyrus’s manner was gruff and uninhibited, but he generally strayed on the side of fairness.

“You hear me, boy? Up!”

Sebastian shot to his feet, pulling the uniform jacket from the back of his chair where he had hung it to prevent wrinkling as he slept.

When the former King had promoted Sebastian to the Primary Guard a few years ago, fresh off of his nineteenth birthday, there were no Guards that had been pleased with the new arrangement, Cyrus included. However, as the months went by and he showed himself to be both adept and willing to pander to the more senior Guards, there became a reluctant tolerance of him, which eventually morphed into indifferent acceptance. Unfortunately, the belittling address of “boy” had remained, and even new, younger Guards sometimes employed it, though to withering glares from Sebastian.

At that moment, however, he did not feel it wise to glare at Cyrus, who seemed to be teetering on the edge of one of his booze-deprived moods. Instead, he chose to move over to the stack of crates, where Arthur was already lifting one into his arms.

“Any of them?” he asked, only to have Arthur nod at him sourly. Arthur was in the Primary Guard as well, and Sebastian assumed he had not taken well to Cyrus assigning him menial labor usually only reserved for the lower Guards.

Then again, Arthur was generally an unpleasant man, made more so by always hiding this unpleasantness beneath a simpering, obsequious demeanor around people of higher rank than himself. He was a favorite of the Head, and Sebastian should not wonder why – they shared a similar meanness, and a grotesque pleasure from others’ suffering. All the female servants always scampered away as quickly as they could when they saw Arthur coming, and Sebastian did not like to think about why that was.

They walked in silence down the hall, the clomping of their boots the only sound between them.

“What are these?” Sebastian finally asked.

“New training gear.”

“Do we have new recruits coming in?”

Arthur chose to ignore him as he shoved open the servants’ door that led out onto the yard, effectively ending their short-lived conversation.

“Over here,” Arthur dropped his crate in the corner of the yard, where a few Guards were already unpacking the contents. Sebastian dropped his crate and straightened just in time to see a familiar figure slip out of a servant’s gate from the East wing.

“We aren’t done, boy!” Arthur snapped at him when he saw that Sebastian was not following him back to the common room.

“I will rejoin in a few minutes,” Sebastian called, eyes still trained on the distant figure. Before Arthur had time to protest, he set off across the yard, following the figure at a surreptitious distance as he moved toward the North wing.

When his target gave a furtive glance behind him, Sebastian had just enough time to duck behind a wall. After a few more seconds, he peeked out from it to see the man disappearing into the servants’ entrance of the North wing.

He slipped out from his hiding spot and strode toward the entrance, slipping through in time to nearly run into the man he was following, who had bent to retrieve a dropped book from the stack he was carrying.

“Where are you going?”

The King’s esquire Henry blinked at him slowly, clearly caught off-guard.

“What business is it of yours?”

“Aren’t you meant to be in the East wing at this time of night? Attending to the King? Or have you mistaken the wing with the Chancellor’s quarters for the Royal one?”

Henry drew himself up to his full height, which was still a good deal shorter than Sebastian. The stare he was returning, however, showed no sign of alarm.

“I _am_ attending to the King. He’s asked me to return these books to the North library. That would be rather difficult for me to do in the East wing, would it not?” Henry flicked a stray lock of blonde hair from his forehead, nostrils flaring. “Shall you follow me there, or am I allowed to walk these halls without an escort from the Royal Guard?”

Sebastian held the esquire’s glare, trying to think of a reasonable excuse for which he himself might also be heading to the North library, but could think of nothing.

“Carry on,” Sebastian muttered, and pushed his way out of the North wing back into the yard.

His heart was still racing, and part of him wanted to wait another few minutes before once again attempting to follow the esquire, but at the same time he knew that now Henry was aware of being followed, he would hardly be indiscreet.

All the same, Sebastian was certain that the books were merely cover, and that an esquire who was suspected of duplicity stealing away to the Chancellor’s quarters in the dead of night was no mere coincidence.

Part of Sebastian still remembered the words that had been exchanged between him and the King, the memory almost a physical sting of embarrassment and anger against his cheek. The King would be no friend of his, that much was clear, and certainly not a replacement of the bond he had shared with the King’s father. And yet, even clearer than the memory of the new King’s condescension was the memory of all of the former King’s kindness, of the respect and trust with which he had treated Sebastian, and of all that Sebastian had owed him. The old King had never asked for anything in return except loyalty – and one final request on his deathbed.

It was in that moment that Sebastian knew that he would never hesitate in his decision to be loyal to the new King, just as he recognized that his instinct had caused him to follow the King’s esquire without a second thought a moment before.

He owed this much to the King’s father, after all, and he had given him his word – and so his son would have Sebastian’s vigilance and his protection, no questions asked, and whether or not the new King desired it would end up proving quite inconsequential.

* * *

The subsequent conferences had been largely uneventful. While the King had indeed started speaking more and had even begun to outline a few tentative proposals, the ideas behind them were all fairly feeble, and the Ministers’ expressions became more skeptical and disillusioned with each meeting.

In his head, Sebastian urged the King to contribute something useful, to show himself knowledgeable in at least one of the areas that the Ministers discussed, but the King remained obstinately vague, requesting some information on finances or supplies but never revealing why he was interested in it nor sharing any opinions.

Sebastian knew that when the King was not in conferences or attending to official duties he was spending a disproportionate amount of time poring over books and various state documents, and he did not understand why none of this study seemed to translate to the King’s actual knowledge of ruling and government. He had unquestionably glimpsed a streak of strength in the King, which, while perhaps somewhat crueler, was certainly reminiscent of his father, but within the company of the Ministers, Sebastian saw none of it.

He did see, however, the Chancellor growing progressively smugger with each conference, slipping in more blatant signs of disrespect each time, and the Ministers, whether purposefully or unconsciously, had begun to follow suit, looking to the Chancellor to conclude conferences and steer the directions of their discourses.

There were no more times where Sebastian found himself alone with the King, and the times he was assigned to him with other Guards, the King made no special effort to isolate the two of them, nor paid him any particular attention; it seemed all the King had wanted to say to him had already been said.

* * *

A voice carried to him, one which was familiar to him.

“Yes, he followed me, the blackguard! Asked me where I was going. He seemed very suspicious, I’ll tell you that, very displeased when he had to let me off. Shall I still make the offer, then?”

“Smythe, on your way somewhere?” Cyrus had just entered the hall in which Sebastian stood, awkwardly paused outside of a cracked door. His cheeks turned red at being caught in such an obvious and childish position, and even though he desperately wished to stay and listen, he had no choice but to bow his head and continue on his way.

“To the common room, sir.”

“Well, then, off you go, boy.”

Sebastian had no doubt that Henry had been speaking of him, but he could come up with no explanation for the offer to which the esquire had been referring.

All he did know was that Henry had likely been speaking to another ally of the Chancellor’s, and he felt the stinging disappointment that if he only had managed a look inside the door, he might have rooted out another traitor.

* * *

“A note for you,” the young girl stretched towards him a piece of paper, then blushed fiercely as he accepted it. She was a pretty, slight thing, no more than sixteen, perhaps, but it was not an uncommon age to marry for the young servants.

He would lie if he said he had not noticed the blushes and whispers that often enveloped young girls when he came in their vicinity, but he chose to not accept any of their coquettish invitations, though it would have likely done him some good to be seen in the company of young girls from time to time. He was already getting a reputation among the Guards for being a prig when it came to women, and he had reason to wish for them to not carry their speculations any further. As carefully as he kept his eyes averted in their living quarters when Guards stripped into night clothes, or made sure to have no reaction to the touch of fellow men, he still feared that soon his self-imposed bachelorhood might become too conspicuous.

For a moment he considered asking the young girl before him out for a walk, a noticeable, springtime stroll down to the docks, but by God, she was so young, and blushing at him so expectantly, that he could not bring himself to utter the words.

“Thank you,” he said, and began examining the note in hopes that she would leave. In a moment or so, however, she was no longer in his attentions, as he read over once more the sparse words written on the torn piece of parchment.

_Once the sun has set, meet me where you and I spoke a few days prior. -H_

Part of him wanted to flick it into the soot of the fire, pretend he had no inkling what it meant, and quietly retire to his quarters after supper to catch much-cherished slumber, but another part of him, one to which he had begun to become more subservient of late, insisted that it could not be that simple.

An event of import must be attached to this note, something significantly crucial for someone to brave the risk of arranging a meeting on paper, and if he did not go to the meeting, he might never know of it. Then again, if the note indeed was, as he suspected, from Henry, then the likelihood was he should be walking into a trap.

Alright, so he would walk into it, and hopefully learn something by it nevertheless.

He remembered the words from a few days before. _Shall I still make the offer, then?_

An offer in exchange for his silence, for his willingness to ignore his treachery? And yet Henry likely knew Sebastian would not report it to anyone, as he did not know who the Chancellor had in his pocket.

Sebastian wished he could say that it was bravery or determination that compelled him to slip from the Guard’s rowdy company after supper and creep his way through the yard, but it was much more pure curiosity. He had been given a secret, and he now had the chance to uncover it, and so he slipped into the darkened servants’ hall of the North wing.

He felt more than saw the person that stood in the darkness with him, and his hand was tight around the hilt of his sword.

“Yes?” he asked, and then just barely prevented himself from drawing it when a candle flickered to light in front of him. Henry’s face was cast into view briefly, and he saw him beckon forward before just as abruptly blowing out the flame once more.

Blinking out the haze of the sudden darkness, Sebastian felt Henry brush past him as he began to stride down the hall. After a moment, he followed suit.

It was several minutes of winding through unlit halls and side doors before Henry finally decided they had reached their destination. He stopped at a stooped, wooden door that opened onto a lightly cluttered, bare-walled storeroom, and beckoned for Sebastian to enter first, closing the door with a click behind him.

“I will not waste our time with superficial words. I have a proposition for you.”

Sebastian said nothing as his eyes finally adjusted to the gloom that was alleviated only by a small lantern burning in the corner. He took in the walls of the storeroom quickly, scanning for any hiding spots or unfamiliar objects to raise suspicion, but found no place among the dancing shadows where someone or something might be concealed.

When it became clear that Sebastian would say nothing, Henry continued. “The Chancellor is looking for sharp, able youth whom he might mentor and guide.”

Sebastian returned his full attention to Henry, who stood before the door but seemed to be unarmed. Sebastian made sure his hand hovered near the hilt of his sword before he answered.

“How charitable of him. I take it you are one of them?”

“I am,” Henry said. “And you, too, have come to the Chancellor’s attention recently.”

Sebastian scrutinized Henry’s face; it was closed-off but resolute, as if all of his decisions had been made long before this moment. “Have I?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes. And he would like to extend to you his protection and mentorship.”

“And this should be from the kindness of his heart?”

“The Chancellor is not a naïve man. He would of course expect certain things in exchange for his – “

“You said earlier you would not waste our time with superficial words,” Sebastian interrupted harshly, “so do not. The Chancellor wants to recruit me to his gang of louts in order to spy on the King, is that not correct?”

Henry crossed his arms over his chest. “You often sit in on conferences the King has, ones the Chancellor might not always be privy to. If there is information the Chancellor might find relevant -”

“I am a member of the Royal Guard. I swear an oath of loyalty and protection to all who fall under my care, but above all others to the living King. I have dutifully given this protection to the King before him, and I do not intend to shirk my duties with this one.”

“That is very noble, Guard,” Henry said wryly, “and it is clear that you have a strong devotion, and rightfully so, to the former King. But he is dead; his reign has come to an end, and the son does not necessarily merit the same devotion.”

“Not necessarily, no, but I personally choose to extend it to him.”

Henry’s face contorted suddenly into a mask of indignance and impatience.

“The young King does not have enough years in him to grow a beard, let alone rule an entire kingdom. Are you willing to sit idly by as the kingdom crumbles around us in his inexperienced hands? The Chancellor may not be a kind man, or a gentle one, but you do not want such men for kings. He is efficient, ruthless, cunning, and he is what our kingdom needs right now. You may have had loyalty to the old King, but the son is no substitute for the father.”

Henry’s words were impassioned, but something about their delivery felt unnatural, rehearsed, insincere. Sebastian wondered briefly if perhaps the Chancellor was coercing Henry into being his unwilling goon.

“And besides that,” Henry continued in the same intense but stilted tone, “do not think you shall not be fairly recompensed for your efforts and support; the Chancellor is very generous to those who pledge their loyalty to him. And, of course, once all this is over, you can be certain that you will be given an appropriate promotion to reward you for your allegiance.”

Sebastian did not bother to hold back the chuckle that escaped him. His decision to remain loyal to the King had already been made long before, but even if he were so inclined, there was no one’s side by which Sebastian would desire less to stand than the Chancellor’s, not even for a promotion to the Head of the Guard himself.

“Is that it? Is that your generous offer? An ironclad kingdom and future rewards I may or may not reap?”

“You do not have to give your decision now,” Henry said.

Sebastian made sure to come closer to Henry, towering over him imposingly, before he answered. “No, I do not have to, but I shall. Here is my decision. When all of this is over, as you so delicately put it, the Chancellor will be divested of his powers, living out the remainder of his pathetic, lecherous years in a pub or the backroom of a brothel, and you, esquire, shall be rotting away somewhere in a mildew-soaked dungeon.

“I, on the other hand, will be in my rightful place in the royal palace, protecting the King to whom I have sworn my allegiance.” Sebastian leaned forward, so that his face was mere inches above Henry’s, bent awkwardly upward to meet his eyes. When he continued, his voice was low and dangerous. “I should rather cut off my own hand than help the Chancellor stick _his_ into the kingdom’s coffers. And the next time that you speak to the Chancellor, tell him that the King too has powerful allies in the palace, and that the Chancellor would be wise to not forget it.”

Sebastian held a fierce gaze pinned against Henry until the esquire tore his eyes away and unconsciously took a step back.

“I see there shall be no persuading you.”

“You’re sharp, esquire. I can see why the Chancellor likes you.” Henry made no reply, but Sebastian was already turning on his heel, exiting the storeroom. The door closed softly behind him, and as he wound his way through the North wing’s halls, he heard no footsteps in his wake; either Henry was creeping further into the wing to report on his lack of success, or he had chosen to remain in the storeroom until long after Sebastian had left.

As Sebastian walked on, the feeling of unease blooming in his chest became more and more tangible. No matter which way he turned this idea, he could not find an angle from which it fulfilled reason. Why should the Chancellor select him as a likely candidate for joining his treasonous efforts, and, what was more, risk reaching out to him so indiscreetly? The former King had made no secret of his preference for Sebastian – was this why? Perhaps the Chancellor thought Sebastian might earn a similar closeness with the new King, become privy to his every thought and plan.

And yet, this was a farfetched likelihood, and furthermore, as his esquire, Henry was already in as close proximity to the King as it was possible to be.

And then there was Henry’s odd delivery of his speech, impassioned but misdirected somehow – Sebastian prided himself on being adept at reading lies in people’s speech and faces, and something in his eyes had not rung quite true as he spoke; it was almost as if he believed deeply in what he was saying, and at the same time did not.

Sebastian inhaled the chilled air deeply as he exited into the yard, tilting his head back to catch sight of a gleaming half-crescent moon.

Perhaps he should have agreed to Henry’s offer, pledging false allegiance for the opportunity to learn of the Chancellor’s plans. However, Sebastian doubted that mere lackeys would be given such insights, and he was also certain that the Chancellor would require his helpers to prove their loyalty in some unsubtle and cruel way.

As Sebastian walked softly across the yard, the night around him was calm and brisk, the moon winking gently above him.

This political war with the Chancellor, made all the more dangerous by being concealed beneath smiling eyes and worshipping rhetoric, promised to be a long and treacherous one, and in his refusal, he had just placed himself squarely on the list of the Chancellor’s foes.

He would think more on his best course of action, and in the meantime, he would remain keenly aware of all those around him, of any new information he might glean.

And also he would pray that the words that he had spoken to Henry as blind bluff were, in fact, actually true – that the King _did_ have powerful allies in the palace, and if so, that they should choose to reveal themselves sometime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, I know this chapter is mainly plot, and I'm sorry if I've lost some of you, but in my mind it was necessary setup for what's to come. Don't worry, the next chapter will have far more interaction between Kurt and Sebastian once again, I promise!


	3. A Test

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and for your wonderful comments! I'm really enjoying writing this, so it means a lot that you're all enjoying reading it, too :) And without further ado, here's the next chapter!

_“The fool listens to no one but trusts all._

_The wise [man] listens to all but trusts only himself.”_

\- old Asteran proverb

**Chapter 3: A Test**

The advisory conferences of the preceding weeks had been almost exclusively concerned with discussing the new Marski province formed to the east. Freshly seceded from the Asteran kingdom on the heels of its civil war, news had spread that the leader of the revolution had just been declared the Head of State, entirely renouncing the monarchy line of rule that was so accepted in all sovereign kingdoms. There was much discussion regarding this point, particularly on the dangerous precedent such news might set for future governments.

The opinions among the Ministers varied. Some argued that it was harmless – that there had come provinces like Marsek many times before and would come many times again, and, like always, would within a decade be swallowed by time as an insignificant blip of history. Ignore it, they insisted, and it would go away of its own accord.

Others (and the Chancellor was among these) believed that it was a dangerous first step in the entirely wrong direction, and they urged the King to publicly and vehemently condemn such a province. So long as it was made clear that such trains of thought should not be tolerated, there was a good chance at smothering a revolt before it even had time to be kindled.

A third group of the Ministers too believed it to be a serious threat but suggested a different approach towards mitigating the risk. Befriend Marsek, sign a treaty, send a welcoming diplomatic envoy, they said – in some way form a public alliance with Marsek, to show that both forms of government may harmoniously coexist.

Throughout the conferences, all three parties of opinion by turns provided their arguments, laying out plans and setting forth their official advisements to the King. Sebastian found it all rather tiresome and let his mind wander continually, but the points were all made and remade so persistently that it was impossible to not catch the general direction of each argument.

The King listened to all of them attentively, seated by the fire, fingers clasped in front of his face and elbows perched on his thighs. Sebastian could not begin to guess as to what the King was thinking; perhaps he was indeed listening judiciously, but if so, he then surely would have interjected at least once by then.

It was at such moments of stillness that Sebastian had discovered an unfortunate habit of his own, one which he could not even recall starting. Whenever he made his customary scan over the people in the room, he had begun letting his eyes linger on the King. At first, they had simply been unconscious attempts to find in him something of his father – some quirk, some feature, some trait that would be reminiscent of the former King.

But far too soon, he had found his eyes wandering over the King’s features in further scrutiny – his precise cheekbones, his piercing eyes, his ivory skin, and all of a sudden Sebastian’s thoughts began to tend in a direction that terrified him. He would always flick his eyes away immediately, praying that the burn in his cheeks was invisible, heart galloping with the guilt and shame.

To think such things of a man – to think such things of a King – this was deeply disgraceful but in Sebastian’s heart, forgivable. To think such things of a King that had disregarded and patronized him the way this King had – this was something Sebastian could not bear to contemplate.

Each time he vowed to no longer let the King occupy his thoughts unless connected to his protection, and each time he held this vow up until the moment his eyes inadvertently settled on him once again.

The King, if he felt this attention, did not betray the knowledge. His expression always remained much the same, contemplative and guarded.

And by the end of each conference, he always gave the same answer. “Thank you, Ministers, I will consider these points carefully.”

With each passing meeting, Sebastian observed the Chancellor grow more confident and the Ministers more vexed. It seemed they were used to foolhardy decisions, or even cunning decisions, but not used to decisions being avoided altogether.

“My Liege, if I may be so forward,” one of the Ministers broke in at the end of such a conference, “it has been a month since your kingdom received word of the Marski province’s sovereignty. If a decision is not made soon, then it shall in its own way appear to be a decision, but an entirely ineffective one.”

“Now, now, Minister Haguere,” the Chancellor interjected with a slimy air of graciousness, “if the King feels the need to consider the matter further, then we must let him. After all, he is still quite new to all these…politics, shall we say. We must give him time to learn all of the intricacies.”

“But, Chancellor, there is –“

“I will give my decision at the next conference,” the King said, voice ringing through clearly as a bell. “I thank all of you for your advisements. Let us adjourn this conference.”

Sebastian reluctantly hid the satisfaction he felt at the Chancellor’s expression of displeasure; it was the first time the King had taken back the right to conclude the conference, and to the Chancellor it had quite clearly been an unexpected change.

In turns, the Ministers gave their hands to the King as they exited, bowing lightly before him.

The Chancellor stood to the side as he usually did, waiting to be the last to pay deference, and as he waited, his beady eyes, in a rare moment of candidness, glittered with barely concealed malice, and, to Sebastian, glittered also with the worrying promise of far worse yet to come.

* * *

“I believe I owe you an apology.”

If Sebastian had not seen the King speak the words with his own eyes, he should have believed he had imagined them.

“Do you, my Liege?”

The King shook his head impatiently. “Have I not told you to dispel with formalities when it is only the two of us?”

When Sebastian had been informed by Cyrus that morning that he was one of the guards being assigned to the King’s afternoon watch, he had not thought much of it, until he’d asked who his partner would be, and Cyrus had simply shaken his head.

“It seems the son’s taken after the father,” Cyrus had explained disapprovingly. “He’s begun requesting single guards to accompany him. Evidently, he finds two to be unseemly. Don’t worry, he’s likely to remain in the library for the remainder of the day – not much else that he does, it seems.”

To have spoken so bluntly and forthrightly of the former King would have been unthinkable, but it seemed the irreverence that the higher officials had been projecting onto the new King had begun to seep down into the lower staff of the palace. More and more of late Sebastian had been hearing quiet whispers (and not-so-quiet whispers) passing between Guards, stable boys, servants, all expressing discontent or skepticism of their new monarch.

And the most unpleasant part was that Sebastian had no arguments with which to defend him.

So rather than make any remark to Cyrus, he had retired dutifully to his afternoon assignment, the duration of which the King indeed appeared to be planning to remain in the library – but, as it turned out, in the library of the West wing, rather than the usual one in the East.

The West wing was a part of the castle that was now uninhabited and therefore steadily passing into disrepair. Many of the texts that were unused or crumbling were generally tossed into the West library, and occasionally it was visited for a given document’s retrieval. All other rooms were fairly unusable, however, and the wing was nearly always empty; even the servants and staff tended to avoid it for their romantic rendezvous, though some for more superstitious reasons – the West wing had been where the Queen, the former King’s wife, had died many years ago.

But the King had showed no hesitance as they entered the West wing through the servants’ door, nor any as he navigated through the halls to the library, where he had settled into a seat at a table with a dusty pile of parchments.

Half an hour or so had passed by in silence before the King had broken it unexpectedly.

“I have been waiting to get you alone, you know,” he had said. “I’ve been asking for single guards for some days now. I supposed that you would be assigned to me eventually.”

Sebastian had not known what response was expected of him, and so the King had used the silence as a chance to announce, with no particular preamble or context, that he believed he owed Sebastian an apology.

And now, after interrupting himself to scold Sebastian on his use of formal address, he returned to it once more. “And yes, I do believe I owe you an apology. I was cruel and unfair and seemingly ungrateful, and I am quite certain I angered you. I fear, however, it was quite necessary.”

For the first time in some days, Sebastian allowed his gaze to fully settle on the King. His eyes were crystal-blue, clear and bright and not quite apologetic, but certainly empathetic. Gone was the condescension, the aloofness that Sebastian had come to associate with him so closely since their last conversation. The solemnity and firmness still remained, but were both softer somehow, as if tempered by the crinkle of his eyes and the tilt of his head.

Sebastian searched his face for signs of mockery or farce but found none; his words and posture showed every sign of being sincere.

“Necessary to anger me?”

“It is always necessary to see how strongly one’s loyalty holds. The sort of loyalty that wavers at the first harsh words, at the first creak of the sinking ship, that sort of loyalty is far more dangerous to me than having no loyalty at all, because I would depend on something that is not there.” The King stood, but rather than approaching Sebastian he leaned against the edge of his table, arms crossed across his chest. “Don’t you agree?”

Despite there being no trace of humor or amusement in the King’s face, Sebastian could not prevent himself from feeling he was being made the object of some joke.

“I shouldn’t know, my Liege,” he answered, adding the address simply to provoke irritation.

The King raised an eyebrow and then said, carefully enunciating each word as if he was laying out a complex riddle, “Forgive me. I will not waste our time with superficial words.”

Sebastian froze, feeling the muscles in his jaw contract tightly. He recognized the phrasing – phrasing that had been delivered to him exactly not even a week ago, by an impassioned, brittle esquire.

Suddenly, he was aware of a profound sense that he was being or had been tricked somehow, that there were events and actions being manipulated far above his head or understanding. His mind raced to catch up to the implications, to untangle the knot of logic with which the King might have been aware of the conversation that Sebastian had had with a traitorous esquire.

“I fear you’ll harm yourself thinking so hard, Guardsman,” the King said, the faintest trace of a smile playing along his lips. “And before you allow yourself to concoct your own implausible explanation – yes, I know of the offer made by Henry to spy on me for the Chancellor. I know of it because it is exactly what I asked him to do.”

Sebastian felt his mouth go dry, an inkling of the only possible explanation for the King’s words suddenly dawning on him. “But your esquire is a traitor,” he said hoarsely.

The King gave him a contemplative look. “On the contrary. Henry is one of the few people I would trust implicitly with my life. But in order for you to believe the offer, you could not know that.”

If before the King’s response Sebastian had had any doubts as to the scheme that had been orchestrated at his expense, they were now duly removed, and once again he felt the glow of fiery indignation begin burning in his palms.

Now, at least, all the mysteries and inconsistencies resolved themselves – the Chancellor had had no reason to reach out to him, and he had not. And Sebastian had sensed that the esquire had both believed and entirely disbelieved the words he was saying, because that had, in fact, been the case – Henry had disbelieved the words he was saying in support of the Chancellor, but firmly believed in the task that the King had asked him to complete. And for the whole time Sebastian had been entirely taken in, naively following the path laid out before him, obliviously accepting everything at face value.

And the conversation he had overheard – Henry informing someone he’d been followed. _Shall I still make the offer, then?_ He had not been speaking to a goon of the Chancellor’s, Sebastian realized. He must have been speaking to the King.

Even through his growing embarrassment and outrage, Sebastian could not fail to recognize the King’s cleverness, the cunning necessary to concoct such a scheme, a skill in which Sebastian had grossly underestimated him. And all the time they had spoken, Sebastian, who was so certain of his abilities in reading lies, had not read even an inkling of deception in the King’s face or mannerisms.

“You – you set me a trap?” he pronounced slowly, barely suppressing his anger, his throat still bone-dry and his hands clenching in at his side.

The King took a step closer, so that Sebastian could now more clearly see the scrutiny in his blue-glass eyes, the play of the waning sunlight against his ivory skin.

“No, Sebastian,” he corrected, and now Sebastian could see in his eyes the acuteness, the intelligence gleaming through with an intensity which Sebastian’s anger must have prevented him from seeing before. “I set you a test. And you passed, quite impressively, I might say; Henry is rarely moved, but he admitted he was quite taken by your show of devotion. Your loyalty to my father must have been quite strong.”

Sebastian unconsciously licked his lips, cheeks still burning. “I don’t think I appreciate being the object of your games, my Liege. And furthermore, orchestrating such deceit was something which, I might add, your father never – “ He stopped his tongue abruptly as the King’s words finally registered in his ears. “You know my name.”

If Sebastian thought the King was capable of such a humane emotion, he might have thought that the King’s expression flickered briefly into sheepishness, but in another moment, it was already as calm and discerning as before – though not unkind.

“I knew my father was close to you, Sebastian, though I never knew the precise nature of his bond to you. He mentioned you by name several times, and I took note. You never know when potential allies might come to hand.”

A brief flare of hurt flashed through Sebastian at the implications of the King’s words. “Then your father never told you that you should trust me?” Sebastian asked stiffly, making sure to push the disappointment out of his voice.

Despite his efforts, the King seemed to be able to read exactly where Sebastian’s thoughts had tended. “Do not misunderstand me, Sebastian. Though he never said it in so many words, I am quite certain that my father trusted you.” One side of his mouth quirked up slightly, not so much in a smile as in conciliation, and Sebastian began to recognize this half-raise as an emotional quirk that the King possessed.

“Despite this, however,” the King continued, “my father understood the perils of his position, and perhaps more importantly understood people’s inevitable tendency toward misjudgment. He trusted you, but he was acutely aware of his own fallibility, and so he could never be entirely certain that trusting you was not a gap within his judgment. He already knew that I would one day inherit his position; he was careful that I should not inherit his mistakes.”

Sebastian could already tell that the King’s face inevitably softened when he spoke of his father, that it was the closest to slipping off his mask of stoicism that the King had ever come in front of Sebastian. And from that sincerity, Sebastian found his own temper softening, found himself unconsciously scanning the King’s face once again for signs of his father’s features or even just a brief flash of his father’s kindness. And then Sebastian realized he was in all likelihood staring, and just barely managed to repress the blush that he felt tickling his neck as he trained his eyes onto the floor.

If the King had noticed, he chose to make no comment on it. Instead he placed a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. Sebastian’s gaze shot back up to the King’s face, who seemed to be patiently waiting for its return.

“There is something that I must make quite clear, Sebastian, and that is that what I said earlier, while cruel, was not untrue: you stand to lose far more from being my ally than you would stand to gain from it. I will hold nothing against you if you chose to return to your post simply as a neutral observer. If you are caught helping me, there will be no mercy for you from the Chancellor, and at such a point I will likely have little means through which you might be protected.”

“It is good, then,” Sebastian answered, holding his stare firmly, “that _I_ am the one meant to protect _you_.”

The King’s eyes searched his for several moments, and Sebastian allowed him his scrutiny, patiently bearing the gaze. When he finally tore his eyes away, removing his hand from Sebastian’s shoulder as well, it was with a sigh. “Very well, then. Whatever debt you feel you owe to my father, I hope it will be worth this.”

“Your father saved my life,” Sebastian said plainly. “And all he ever asked of me in return, just before he passed, was to protect you.”

A flash of surprise passed across the King’s face before smoothing it into its usual composure. “I would have thought that such a request, considering your position, would be rather redundant,” he finally replied, using the discreetly sardonic tone with which Sebastian was becoming familiar.

“I believe he meant it to extend past the given duties of a Guard.”

The King regarded him thoughtfully, then nodded. “Perhaps.” There was an air of dismissal around the King as he moved back to the table, but Sebastian felt that the most crucial part of their conversation had not yet been reached. “And?”

The King turned back to him. “Yes?”

“You know of the dangers of the Chancellor, and you have given me your trust. Surely you have plans, plans for which I might be an aid? Do you not wish me to spy, to report for you?”

“Sebastian, I have found you to be trustworthy, but I have not, as of yet, bestowed my trust on you. There is a difference between these two things. For the time being, I would say the less you know of my plans, whatever they may or may not be, the better. At the point that I need you, I know you will be there, and for now, that is enough. Understood?”

Practically every fiber of Sebastian’s being disagreed with this immensely – what use was he sitting idly by, waiting to be called upon in some indeterminate future, all while the King’s supporters were few and far between? But he could not see himself winning an argument with the King, not with a quickfire temper and unsound reasoning. So instead, he nodded stiffly. “Whatever you say, my Liege.”

The King seemed satisfied with his response, and was about to turn back to his table before he paused.

“Oh, before I forget -” The King’s voice was tinged with an exaggerated casualness, and the corner of his lips once again tilted up, this time in barely hidden amusement. He leaned back lightly against the desk, arms crossed. “Who are they?”

“They?” Sebastian asked, once again thrown off-balance. It seemed that in conversations with the King, Sebastian would never have the luxury of being on sure footing.

“My powerful allies in the palace…the ones of which you spoke to Henry? I must admit, I should very much like to meet them.”

This time Sebastian knew the King’s teasing was not in any way unkind; his eyes twinkled with barely suppressed humor, his lips pulled into a soft smile, and Sebastian could not help but take the chance to unabashedly note his delicate features, his rose-hued cheeks, coupled with what was proving to be a razor-sharp intelligence of which his father would not be ashamed. And then again Sebastian’s thoughts began to steer into a perilous direction, and he pushed them roughly from his mind, instead returning the King’s smile with a knowing smirk of his own.

“I can assure you, my Liege, if these allies ever make themselves known, you shall not be expecting them.”

The King’s eyes gleamed with unspoken laughter, and Sebastian’s last hope of continuing to find the King disagreeable vanished.

“That, Guardsman, I shall believe.”

* * *

The next conference dawned, and all the Ministers shuffled in anxious anticipation, awaiting the King’s decision on how to proceed with the Marski province.

Sebastian was stationed in his usual corner of the room, watching everyone attentively but not too obviously. Almost on instinct, he was careful that his eyes never lingered for too long on the King. The King, in turn, paid him no attention whatsoever as he assumed his place at the head of the table, raising a hand to silence the muttering of the Ministers.

The King had resumed his air of aloofness, his face solemn but somehow all the more painfully youthful because of it.

“I said in the last conference that I would have a decision prepared for you today on the handling of Marsek…” the King paused briefly, coolly and emotionlessly surveying the Ministers’ faces, “…and I do. I believe our kingdom of Brenrose should extend a gesture of good will toward Marsek, in order to establish a partnership and a pact of peace.”

“Very good, my Liege,” said Minister Ortel, who had been one of the main proponents of the argument to peaceably ally with Marsek. “You are making the correct decision.” Several Ministers nodded along in agreement, while the rest remained stone-faced in their silence. The Chancellor’s expression was displeased, though he busied himself with briefly jotting something on the parchment in front of him.

“Have you considered the method by which Brenrose should show this good will to Marsek?”

“I suppose he’ll need another few weeks for that decision,” Arthur muttered, just barely audible to Sebastian, who was stationed at his side. Sebastian sent him the briefest of withering glares, shocked that the lack of reverence to the King had slipped so far that Guards felt comfortable muttering insults in his very presence. He blamed the Head of the Guard for that, who often made crass and belittling jokes on the King’s rule and stature over dinner. The Head would be entirely unsympathetic if he heard of this, but Sebastian was not above reporting Arthur’s disrespect to Cyrus, who he knew was potently strict on on-shift Guard decorum.

“I have,” the King replied to Sebastian’s relief, who despite taking umbrage at Arthur’s remark had feared it might nevertheless be true. “A diplomatic congregation,” the King continued, “with an envoy, I think, will serve us best in this situation.”

“Very good, my Liege,” said Minister Ortel, looking pleased. “I will give you the list of Ministers who we generally send on such missions, so that you may select – “

“You misunderstand me, Minister,” the King broke in. “I have already chosen the envoy to represent Brenrose. I am the one who shall be traveling to Marsek.”


	4. A Journey

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Thanks to all the readers still with me; I know this chapter took a good long while, and that was probably because I rewrote it more times than I can count. On the plus side, it ended up being so long that I've split it into two chapters, so I will definitely be updating next week!
> 
> Still a bit slow on romantic development, I know (sorry '_'), but things will start picking up soon (well, relatively, because it's still slow burn, y'all). 
> 
> With that, thanks all so much for reading, and reviews always mean the world to me! *o*

_There once was a king of Bren-rose_

_Who held always a book to his nose_

_One day asked his ‘visor,_

_“Has Sire grown any wiser?”_

_“Not yet,” drawled the King, “but damn close.”_

\- a poem found scrawled on a stable wall by one of the Guards, and circulated among all the palace staff within a few days

**Chapter 4: A Journey**

“Suppose that’s what he thinks ruling is, eh? Reading books and embarking on quests.”

“Maybe he’s read a few too many of those epic poems. Thinks he’s a divine hero.”

Sebastian buffed his spare shoes silently in the Guard common room, head bowed in concentration, though he kept aware of those around him by stealing the occasional quick glances. The off-duty Guards around him were discussing with increasing jocularity the spreading news of the palace – namely, that the Royal staff were busy preparing the King for his two-month journey to Marsek (the Marski province was three weeks by horse from the palace, with two weeks set aside to stay under their hospitality, and another three to return).

The palace was abuzz because Kings very rarely left their thrones for such extended periods, and usually only in dire circumstances. Sebastian himself could not remember the former King ever deserting the palace for such a prolonged time; a week, or two, perhaps, had been the longest stretch. And rightly so, Sebastian thought – when the King left, the command moved to the Chancellor, whose position allowed him to take over as ruler whenever the King was absent or unfit.

“Perhaps he’ll slay a few dragons on the way,” Orin said mockingly, and when the gathered Guards chuckled appreciatively, he swelled with poorly concealed pride for his wit.

“Or more likely a few rabbits, with his carriage wheel,” Arthur said nastily, breaking off a piece from the loaf of bread being shared among them.

There was a slight hush in the conversation as the door to the common room opened and Septimus entered, followed by one of the young lower Guards, cradling a sheath.

The young guard immediately came over to Orin, presenting him with the sheath, which Sebastian was fairly certain contained Orin’s freshly sharpened and cleaned sword. The Primary Guard often employed the lower Guards for any of the manual tasks of armor and weapon maintenance that they felt themselves to be above. Sebastian knew that as a Primary Guard himself, he could likely take advantage of this system as well, but as the lower Guards were sometimes barely younger than him, he had always been too wary that they might unabashedly laugh in his face.

Orin accepted the sheath, pulling out the sword for close inspection, and, upon being satisfied, leaned it at his side. “Good lad,” he said, and then passed him the loaf of bread. “Join us.”

The young Guard betrayed a flash of immense pride on being allowed to join the Primary Guard’s off-duty circle. Sebastian guessed that Orin was grooming him to be an informal apprentice to him, someone willing to follow his every bidding in exchange for an occasional inclusion or remark of praise.

In the meantime, Septimus, as was usual for him, had given no greeting to anyone, simply taken a seat near Sebastian and, having pulled a book from his jacket, propped it open on his knee to read.

Most of the Guards were illiterate, but Septimus and a few others had learned how to read through varying circumstances, either their parents’ own tutelage or in Septimus’ case, as far as Sebastian could tell, by self-teaching.

Sebastian was literate by virtue of being raised in the palace and being given free rein of the libraries by the former King as a child; for some years after his tenth birthday, he had also been allowed to study with the tutors of the Court after all his duties and chores were complete. He had not gotten anywhere near as far as a truly educated man would have in his studies, but he had been given a basic understanding of history, mathematics, literature – all of the general subjects. Because of this, he was already significantly more learned than the average Guard, but since his early days of joining the Guard, he had been careful to never betray this, for fear of increasing ill will towards himself.

Septimus had never hidden his literacy or his enjoyment of intellectual pastimes, but his age and imposing stature had prevented any of the other Guards from making disparaging remarks. By the same token, the other Guards knew that Septimus disapproved quite stringently of gossip and irreverence under any pretense, and it was for this reason that the hush had descended over the previously animated conversation, with all of the Guards around the table now shifting awkwardly. None of them seemed willing to start the thread up again beneath Septimus’s solemn presence.

Surprisingly, it was the young Guard, either emboldened by his invitation to their table or oblivious to Septimus’s disapproval, who finally broke the silence.

“Have you all heard the news, then?”

“Everyone and the larder maid have heard the news, laddie,” Arthur said as he firmly took back the bread, clearly displeased this impetuous youth had been allowed to breach their table. “The King announced his journey days ago.”

The young Guard did not appear to be abashed by this; rather, he seemed actually to grow in his smugness, leaning over to pour himself some ale from the jug at the table’s center. “Ah, so you haven’t heard, then,” he said proudly.

All of the Guards were too distracted by this declaration to scold him from treating himself to their drink. Sebastian could no longer hide the fact that he himself was listening, and he sensed Septimus tense in attention beside him.

“Meaning what, exactly?” Arthur questioned boorishly, shooting Orin a glare that said, _Where have you found this tosser?_

“Well, I just heard Cyrus and the Head discussing it, haven’t I? They’re right displeased.” The young Guard was clearly enjoying himself, so much so that he was entirely unprepared for the knock upside the head delivered to him swiftly by Orin.

“Enough nonsense, boy! Out with it.”

The young Guard finally seemed chastened enough to stop sneering. “Well, I just heard it, sir. Or what I think I heard, anyhow. They’ve just found out, apparently, that the King won’t be taking any of the Royal Guard with him on his journey.”

Sebastian’s brow creased in disbelief, and all of the other Guards began to mutter among themselves.

Arthur scoffed. “Stop speaking nonsense! The King traveling without any Guard? You must still have the blacksmithing ringing in your ears, boy.”

“I know what I heard!” the young Guard said petulantly, rising to his feet in indignation. It was clear this young boy was not just immensely conceited but also quick to anger – Orin knew how to select a certain kind, Sebastian thought to himself darkly. “And I didn’t say the King would be traveling without protection, now, did I? He’s requesting that he’s only to be accompanied by members of the Brigade!”

A silence fell over the common room. Sebastian was vaguely aware his hand had stilled its buffing, but all the other Guards seemed as equally frozen with surprise. The young Guard, quite pleased with himself, slid back to his seat. “Cyrus and the Head, they’re right displeased,” he repeated, reveling in the stunned silence he was responsible for.

“Ridiculous!” Arthur finally burst out. “The King can’t be that bloody – ” He stopped himself short before finishing the insult – such a blaspheme seemed to be too much, even for him. “Use the Brigade? It’s insanity!”

The other Guards took that as a cue to add in their own thoughts, and suddenly the common room erupted into chatter and outrage, the Guards all stumbling over each other’s words in order to share their opinion on the veracity or absurdity of this news.

Orin drank deeply from his mug of ale, eyes stormy and brows pushed together in a deep frown, face already growing red with consternation.

Septimus, book lying forgotten on his knee, remained silent, a thoughtful expression playing over his features. For a brief moment he turned and caught Sebastian’s eye, though it seemed more that Septimus was scrutinizing Sebastian’s reaction than that he was trying to pass on any message.

“I suppose he has his reasons,” Septimus finally said, so quietly that Sebastian had to strain to hear him over the other Guards’ din.

And then, as if that wrapped up the matter, Septimus turned over the book on his knee and went back to his reading.

* * *

Sebastian spent the span of the next week denying to himself that his tetchy nerves and anticipation were anything out of the ordinary – certainly not connected to the coming journey, and certainly not to any expectations of the King himself summoning or contacting him in some form.

He could not deny, however, that several times that week Septimus’s words, calm and gravelly, had dropped unbidden into his thoughts: _I suppose he has his reasons._

Whether he was aware of it or not, Septimus had almost undoubtedly spoken the truth. After all, Sebastian, too, supposed that the King had his reasons. Having glimpsed the extent of the King’s forethought and caution that bordered on (dare he say it) paranoia, Sebastian could hardly believe that childish whims or ignorance had spurred his decisions to set off to Marsek, or to discard the Royal Guard.

All the same, this assumption did little to help quell Sebastian’s roaming thoughts, which spent listless hours continually wandering back to deciphering the King’s true reasons for the journey. Perhaps, Sebastian thought, the King knew of an ally he might find in Marsek to help rid himself of the Chancellor. Or, perhaps, he would be using it as a cover to travel elsewhere, for a disparate purpose which he did not wish to be made known.

No matter how long Sebastian thought on it, however, during shifts, over dinner, as he drifted into restless sleep, it made no difference. Until he gleaned some new information, it would all simply be unfounded guesswork.

And while Sebastian was certain that the King believed his reasons for carrying out such plans to be valid, he himself could not remove the doubts he harbored on whether any reaped rewards would actually be high enough to warrant such grave risks – risks not only from bestowing the kingdom to the care of the Chancellor for two months, but also from favoring the protection of the Brigade over that of the Royal Guard.

And yet each day he awaited some new knowledge or announcement to reach him, either through the staff’s gossip or from the King himself, but unfailingly each day ended with nothing of interest or note. And all the while, the journey grew nearer with every day, the preparations of the horses, the carriages, and the supplies were all finishing, and Sebastian was growing all the more restless and uneasy.

The several nights he had been assigned to the Chancellor’s protection, he had observed in him a profoundly satisfied and triumphant man. Each of those nights, the man had all but gloated, beady eyes glinting as he toasted boisterously to his coming reign – “In jest, in jest, of course! Only the briefest of reigns!” he would say, likely for the benefit of the Guards and the staff, but with a rat-like smile pulling his mouth back into his cheeks.

The King, however, Sebastian only saw among large groups, either of Ministers or Guards, and, in the same vein as his previous interactions with the King, Sebastian found himself to be entirely incapable of reading a single emotion or vestige of information from his face.

* * *

Sebastian awoke glaringly early on the day before the King’s departure – not of his own volition, but because the men finishing their night shifts had tramped in loudly to the quarters, as they were often wont to do after particularly slow nights, knocking roguishly into the beds of dozing Guards.

“Up, you lot! Bright and early!” Orin crowed in a brackish tone, to the grumbling complaints of the abruptly roused men. Sebastian himself was loath to peel his eyes open. His head pounded as heavily as if he had been tossing back several men’s rations of ale the night before, even though he had had even less than usual. Begrudgingly, he pushed himself to his feet, running a hand over a slightly unshaven jaw. Until a Guard reached the age of twenty-five, they were all required to be clean-shaven – yet another one of the countless distinctions imposed between senior and junior Guards. While Sebastian was senior by virtue of being in the Primary Guard, he still remained below the age limit, and therefore rather than suffering the embarrassment of having to ask which group he fell into, he made it clear it was his own preference to always keep his face bare.

This morning, however, he was in no particular mood to set aside any attention to his appearance, and so he changed quickly into his uniform, straightening his jacket’s tassels and giving a cursory shape to his hair with a comb. When he finally affixed the belt and sheath at his side, it was with a cold anticipation for the fruitlessness of the day to come.

He let his eyes wander indifferently around the room and found everyone else absorbed in their own worlds. The men who had just been woken were busy dressing, eyes trained blearily down, while the Guards just returned from their shift were all stripping carelessly and collapsing onto their bunks. Emerging from the sleeping quarters to snatch breakfast, Sebastian found the palace halls still abuzz with preparations, the younger staff sent running to and fro on last-minute errands, and the kitchens as he went past were as busy as he had ever seen them for banquets, packing up all the jerkied meats and breads and wines they’d prepared for the journey.

Just as Sebastian had expected, the day crawled past painfully slowly. Assigned to the Treasury, he caught no glimpse of the King that day, nor heard any more news of the impending journey. Over dinner, the table was full of riotous mirth borne of the wine they’d been given to toast the King’s departure, and Sebastian drank heartily, but found no reason to join in the laughter and jests of the others.

Since first learning of the journey, Sebastian had been, he now realized, quite confidently expecting a summons at some point – some moment in which the King would send for him, or apprise him in some way of his plans or motivations. But now that with each passing moment it became increasingly less likely that this would occur, he was falling into a sour mood, tempered only by the necessity of appearing unaffected while he finished his meal.

Across from him, Septimus ate just as quietly, though unlike Sebastian, this was no deviation from how he usually took meals. It was only from seeing Septimus’s gaze lift suddenly and focus past his head that Sebastian first knew anything was out of the ordinary; he swiveled his head behind him to see Henry making his way down the line of the table to where the Head of the Guard sat, and bending over to whisper something to him.

The Head listened intently a few moments, and then stood.

“Guard Smythe,” he announced, and Sebastian felt all heads swivel to him unabashedly. “Your presence is requested.”

Many of the Guards around them had fallen silent, watching intently. Being pulled from a meal was unusual in and of itself, but being pulled by the King’s esquire would certainly be bountiful fodder for gossip over the next few days. Moreover, Sebastian knew as soon as he was gone, the Head would have no qualms disclosing whatever words had been whispered to him by Henry.

Henry seemed entirely unaffected by all the attention directed towards them, much as he had been unabashed when Sebastian had cornered him in the East Wing. His habit of straightening himself up should have been made laughable with his shortness, but the solemnity and pride with which he bore himself made the action appear natural. He waited loftily for Sebastian to push himself to his feet and make his way towards him before loudly commanding, “Come now!” and turning sharply on his heels, ignorant of the sniggers that broke out behind him.

Sebastian paid them no mind either, striding out of the dining hall in Henry’s wake and easily drawing level to his brisk walk in the corridor.

“What did you tell the Head?” he asked lowly.

Henry gave him a slightly disdainful look, as if Sebastian should have already guessed at their words somehow. “I told him that it has come to our Liege’s attention, upon finishing his father’s bequests, that yours has not yet been bestowed, and that he wishes to do so before he leaves for the journey.”

“ _Is_ there a bequest?” Sebastian asked despite himself, even though he likely knew the answer, because the idea that he might be given a token of the bond he’d shared with the old King made his heart squeeze painfully in chest.

Henry stared at him as if he were wondering how one as stupid as Sebastian could manage to stand upright. Eventually, he seemed to swallow whatever insult he had had brewing on his tongue.

“No,” he finally replied with quiet scorn, “but there needed to be some reason for the King to see you tonight, didn’t there?” Though Sebastian was not entirely sure why he had earned Henry’s intense dislike, his tone was prickly enough to discourage Sebastian from extending any offering of amiability, and so they lapsed into an officious silence as they walked.

At first Sebastian had imagined their meeting might take place in the library, or some other inconspicuous setting, but as they wound through the corridors, it became clear that they were making their way directly towards the King’s chambers.

The Guards that were stationed at the door kept their prescribed masks of aloofness as they allowed Henry and Sebastian to pass into the rooms, though Sebastian could imagine the burning curiosity he would have felt in their place. Following Henry inside, Sebastian just barely had time to scan the King’s antechamber before he was already being ushered on through the door of the King’s private sleeping quarters. He heard the door shut soundly behind him, and when he glanced back, Henry was already gone.

Sebastian let his eye sweep briefly over the room. From what he remembered, it was quite similar to the one held by the King’s father, slightly smaller, perhaps, but filled with the regalia and luxury bestowed automatically upon members of royalty.

However, while his father’s décor had been, as far as Sebastian could tell, entirely impersonal, the new King’s chambers had subtle brushes of character and preference all throughout. A few small paintings of unusual coloring and subjects had been tucked, almost clandestinely, between the overbearing religious and royal portraits more typical to the day. Books littered almost all the surfaces, but neatly, layered in parallel stacks. A small corner of a dresser appeared to be dedicated to a music box collection, each one more ornate and iridescent than the last.

The King himself was seated behind a mahogany desk, occupied with sorting a stack of documents into two piles by some criterion that Sebastian could not discern. He did not bother to raise his head at Sebastian’s entrance, nor a good thirty seconds later, when he finally addressed him, voice brisk and abstracted. “I apologize for pushing our meeting so close to my departure, but I am afraid I have been busy with preparations.”

There followed a pause, but before Sebastian could decide whether or not he was meant to give a response, the King had set down the documents and pushed himself up from his desk, turning to face him.

The change in the King from when they had last spoken, though subtle, was nonetheless noticeable to Sebastian’s eye. Creases were beginning to etch themselves into the corner of the King’s mouth, and pinched frown lines were spreading across his forehead. Through all of him ran an undeniable tinge of weariness, from the slight bend in his shoulders to the shadows playing beneath his eyes. It seemed that the past few weeks (or perhaps, indeed, the belated strain of rule itself) had finally begun creating their sharp-grooved marks. Sebastian’s heart wavered on the brink of sympathy, but he pushed it forcefully back from the edge; the King did not summon him here for pity, and, from the little he knew of him, would likely detest the idea.

Sebastian took all of this in over the few seconds that the King himself spared Sebastian a curt onceover. The King’s eyes still contained their sharp gleam, though a glassy quality to them betrayed that his focus was likely split between Sebastian and other pressing aspects of his impending journey. With the cursory scan of Sebastian complete, the King continued to speak as he crossed over to his dresser and began rifling through a stack of books, checking each title before neatly setting it on a neighboring pile.

“I am afraid I do not have much time,” the King was saying as he flipped quickly through the stack. “There are still some loose ends I must see to, so you’ll forgive me for keeping this talk brief.”

Sebastian imagined that most preparations for the King’s journey should have been delegated to his esquire and staff, but then again, a traveling case lay ajar and half-filled on the King’s bed – so it was likely not of simple packing to which the King alluded.

“Tomorrow morning, I will be making my departure,” the King continued. “I will be departing with Henry and the Brigade. You will be remaining here at the Palace.” Sebastian had no time to even feel the first thrust of disappointment in the pit of his stomach, before the King, taking no pause, was already barreling on with instructions. “While you are here, I will want you to observe everyone around you. I am certain you have already begun mental lists: men who you know for certain are my enemies, others who you suspect might be sympathetic.” The King, seeming to finally find the title of which he had been in search, set down the remainder of the stack and flipped through the book’s pages as he continued speaking.

“And so, keep these lists fresh in your mind. Add to them while I am gone, because in my absence I am certain everyone will become even less inclined to hide their true intentions or opinions. Setting the Chancellor aside, it is time for me to start cataloguing who is in support of me and who is not, even among the staff, and your input for that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to me.” A slight exhale of satisfaction revealed that the King had found the page he had been seeking, and he returned his gaze to Sebastian as he turned back to his desk.

“If all goes accordingly, in a few days fore or aft of a fortnight’s time, someone shall contact you, and you may be given some greater insights into my plans. However, your primary aim will still remain to observe all those around you. Make sure you are careful. _Do not_ , Sebastian,” he stressed those words especially, “ _do not_ do anything blatant or unnecessarily perilous.”

He finally broke off from the speech, a single eyebrow tilting neatly up as he met Sebastian’s eyes with a steady gaze. “Is all of this clear?”

Sebastian nodded stiffly; the King’s words were perfectly clear, taut and efficient as they were. And yet, the tug of fervor that had been busy overtaking Sebastian’s heart ever since Henry had entered the dining hall, that unmistakable thrum of excitement that pulsed within him in anticipation of action – all of it had been snuffed in the span of the King’s speech, as soundly as the embers that now blinked weakly in the chamber’s dim fireplace.

The disappointment tasted on Sebastian’s tongue bitterly, but not unfamiliarly, and was followed swiftly by the even more familiar frustration he felt rankling his chest, at how sparse the King’s words were, how unforthcoming the information. Even the promise of a greater confidence within a fortnight’s time could do little to soothe away this irritation, for he could not see why this information could not be delivered to him at this very moment.

And perhaps it had been foolish of Sebastian, briefly allowing himself to imagine joining the journey as the sole trusted compatriot… or, if left behind, trusted implicitly to perform thorny, difficult espionage with the Chancellor and his dealings. And yet, surely, even at his most pragmatic, Sebastian should not have pictured himself watching passively from a corner for the span of two months, much as he did already.

“And what of the Chancellor?” Sebastian asked, and he was proud that his words were wrapped in officious professionalism, unbetraying of his brooding thoughts. “Who shall be observing him?”

“That is not something with which you need to concern yourself at the moment,” the King responded, and though his words were not delivered rudely, his face made it clear that the topic was not one into which Sebastian was invited to delve.

For a moment, Sebastian considered simply leaving all matters there. His orders for the duration of the journey had been delivered to him, quite explicitly, and many a Guard in his place (in fact, all _good_ Guards in his place) would have simply nodded, given affirmation of their willingness to obey, and made their exit, knowing their position gave them no entitlement to knowing the purpose or backdrop of their superiors’ commands. It certainly seemed to be what the King desired him to do; already, he was back at his desk, finger scanning over a page of text in his newly acquired book.

And yet, Sebastian knew himself well, his own impatience, his own need to put purposes to actions, and he knew that he would not get a better chance to ask the questions that had already been stealing space at the forefront of his mind for some weeks. And certainly, if this had been the King’s father, he would not have had a moment’s hesitation before voicing his concerns and skepticisms. Sometimes the old King’s answers would be vague, or cursory, but always there had been an answer.

It was this thought that finally spurred Sebastian to speak his thoughts aloud; if any similar bond between him and this new King was to form, the young ruler might as well become fully acquainted with Sebastian’s tendency to impertinence now, as his father had been. “If you have already set someone to secretly observe the Chancellor, then what is the purpose of your journey to Marsek?”

At his words, the King’s full attention was returned to Sebastian, eyes lifting from the open book in his hands. He surveyed Sebastian again, this time more intently, and it seemed as if he was considering his own words, weighing various options and differently sized parcels of information. Finally, he snapped the book closed, though his finger remained wedged inside as a marker.

“If we were to speak in hypothetical terms, Sebastian, and were to say that, perhaps, you were not particularly fond of a superior of yours, someone in the Guard, maybe – would you slander him to fellow Guards if he were in the same room as you?”

This sudden diversion in their discourse came with no warning, and yet Sebastian did not let himself be too thrown by the conversation’s abrupt shift in direction; he imagined that if he were to have discourses with the King frequently in the future, he should become resigned to the fact that he would rarely have sure footing.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he settled on replying, as it seemed clear that the King expected a response.

“And if he were in a room over? Just out of earshot?”

“Most likely not,” Sebastian amended, beginning to see where the King’s thread of logic was leading them.

“If he was on the other side of the Palace, occupied with some –”

“Perhaps,” Sebastian cut in, wanting the game to end and for the King’s point to be made.

The King nodded, almost as if asking Sebastian to humor him a few moments more. “And if he had departed on a journey for some set amount of time, undeniably absent from the Palace walls?”

“So, you simply wish to confirm that the Chancellor slanders you when you are not present, that he wishes you harm?” Sebastian asked.

The King sighed, with the first hint of impatience flashing across his face – the momentary loss of composure a symptom, Sebastian suspected, of the King’s tiredness. Nevertheless, Sebastian felt his own cheeks glow slightly in defensiveness, instinctively interpreting this as the King believing him to be slow.

“There is a difference, Sebastian, between knowing that a person wishes you harm, and knowing how they intend to deliver it. By leaving on a journey, I am giving the Chancellor the perfect window of opportunity to begin setting his plans into motion, whatever they may be. By observing him when he believes he is at his safest, I hope to learn exactly what his schemes are regarding the throne and my removal from it – something which I have yet to ascertain.”

“And the Brigade? Why must you take them along in place of - the Royal Guard?” Sebastian barely stopped his tongue from saying ‘– in place of me.’ When the King did not interrupt him, merely met his gaze evenly, Sebastian continued determinedly. “The Brigade is hardly a reliable troupe. Their members have no affiliation to the crown, nor to the palace or the army. They are glorified mercenaries, and the only one to whom they have loyalty is the man that has the deepest pockets.”

“Well, in that case, I shall simply have to make sure that I am paying them more than anyone else, won’t I?” the King replied wryly, and then, as if he read from Sebastian’s face that this answer did not sit well with him, he closed his eyes briefly, squeezing the bridge of his nose between his forefingers, as if to collect his thoughts.

In that position, for the briefest moment, the exhaustion practically spilled out of the King – not quite exhaustion, Sebastian amended in his head, but some profound, onerous weight, overflowing heaviness that poured over his frame and threatened to drown him within its flood.

And again, Sebastian fought against the sympathy, and the sudden, instinctive desire he had to reach a hand towards him, as he would have done with a comrade, for a wounded or grieving brother-in-arms.

But as the King reopened his eyes, hand falling away from his face, the fatigue ebbed away swiftly into his usual calmness, and if Sebastian was not certain of what he had seen, he might have assumed the brief second of unguardedness had been imagined altogether.

The King’s voice, when he spoke again, was not unkind but had tightened into undeniable authority.

“Sebastian, if you continue to question each one of my decisions, then I am afraid you shall not be of very much help to me.” He raised a single finger, preempting Sebastian’s instinct to interrupt before he had even opened his mouth. “You see, I have reasons for the things I choose to do, and just because I do not immediately impart them to you, it does not make them any less valid. More answers shall be delivered to you in a fortnight’s time, but even if you were not expecting this confidence, you must still understand this much – if I have chosen to hire the Brigade, or set off to Marsek, I have done so fully knowing the risks and difficulties that come with it.”

He paused, eyes burning into Sebastian’s pointedly. Sebastian held his tongue; the only comfort he had at that moment was that the King did not seem to be enjoying delivering these words any more than Sebastian enjoyed hearing them.

The King sighed softly at Sebastian’s reticence, the glint in his eyes softening fractionally. When he spoke his next words (and the words held such a finality that Sebastian could not misinterpret them as anything but their discussion’s conclusion), they were so undecorated and sincere, so irrefutably fair, that Sebastian was chastened equally by the words’ verity as by how undeniable the King’s resemblance to his father was at that moment.

“You wish for me to trust your judgment,” the King said evenly, “to not question your motives, to place faith in your decisions. Well, I am only asking the same of you. Trust, you understand, it flows in two directions.” A slight pause, and then, in a softer tone, as if he were imploring Sebastian’s understanding: “I know I am not my father, Sebastian. I don’t believe you can say I have ever made pretense to be. But I believe he would have agreed with this much: that it is not right for a man to only demand trust without bestowing any in return. In two weeks’ time, I shall be giving my trust to you – and, perhaps, while you are waiting, it is time that you begin to give your trust to me.”


	5. A Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading and for your kind, encouraging reviews - it really gives me so much motivation to keep whittling away at this story (even on those days that the words just don't come out in the right order)! 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this new chapter, and reviews always make my day! :D

_Oh, we’ll work to the morrow, till the bridey moon’s pale_

_And ‘ll drown our ol’ sorrows in the foam of our ales_

_Oh, we’ll work to the dawn, and till dawn we shall sail_

_So one day we come home to our lasses,_

_One day we come home to our lasses_

\- A common Remsin sailor shanty, frequently sung in the pubs of Remsin’s coastal towns

**Chapter Five: A Wait**

Sebastian did not watch the King and his procession depart for the journey.

He had seen, however, the Brigade march into the palace early that morning, in their muted, unassuming uniforms and with gleaming hilts hanging at their hips.

The Royal Guard was deeply rooted in traditions and custom, and so within their duties of protection, members were only ever allowed to be trained in and to employ swordsmanship (and, in the event it failed, hand-to-hand combat). In contrast, Sebastian knew that the Brigade members likely had a good three or more weapons hidden on their person that Royal Guards themselves were not even allowed to practice with, let alone carry.

Sebastian had squandered most of his night’s sleep on determinedly picking apart the conversation he had had with the King. He had switched continually between different veins of thought. Either his irritation was rekindled at the King chiding him for his questions; or he began to envisage various disasters that might plague the journey; or else he fruitlessly speculated on what vital information might be revealed to him within the succeeding fortnight.

Possessing at least part of the motivation for the King’s decisions did not ease Sebastian’s mind as much as he had hoped it would – nor did knowing that more elaboration was soon forthcoming. These extremes of caution and forethought were all well and good for someone in the King’s current position, but Sebastian could not help but think that the King, in constantly weaving and layering such elaborate threads, might end up so mired in webs of his own making that he would eventually miss something obvious and fatal.

As always, Sebastian felt that purposeful actions were the best way to resolve his unease and sense of aimlessness. His hands itched to latch onto some tangible task or assignment, but it was this ability to act purposefully of which the King had deprived Sebastian, upon ordering him to under no circumstances draw no attention to himself.

And yet, directly disobeying the King’s orders, when he could not feign misinterpretation or ignorance of them, had never been truly considered by Sebastian since their meeting last night. It was true that the idea had occurred to him, fleetingly, the way that egregious, outlandish solutions are always the first to flit through a person’s head when approaching a problem, but he had given to it no true weight.

As much as Sebastian recognized in himself a quickness to temper and a habit of willfulness, the difference between impertinence and blatant disobedience was momentous, and it was a line which, after years of having unquestioning obedience drilled into him by the Royal Guard, he found he was not prepared to cross.

The new King had demanded his trust, and so, though reluctantly, Sebastian resolved he would give it, and by this token show the King that he himself could be trusted – that he could be not only faithful, but also patient and disciplined.

With all these competing thoughts alternately buzzing in his head throughout the night, Sebastian had woken from his sparse sleep as uneasy and frustrated as he had slipped into it late last night, and when the King’s procession departed just before midday, Sebastian was in the Guards’ dining hall scarfing down his lunch, still busy treading through the bog of his thoughts.

He hardly even noticed when a young serving girl (the very same that had delivered to him Henry’s note all those weeks ago) slipped him an extra loaf, clearly thinking his distant expression betrayed a lack of sustenance.

“It’s no trouble,” she said shyly when he thanked her, blushing scarlet from the tips of her ears down. He did not know her name, but he recognized her as a staple of the kitchens, and knew also that she had developed a slight infatuation with him over the past few months. He smiled at her as kindly as he could manage, but if she returned it, he did not see, for he had already returned to his food and his thoughts.

In this way, he remained mostly oblivious to all those around him for the day’s remainder, and it only occurred to him belatedly that already he was failing at the task of observation which he had derided for its simplicity only the night before.

Even as he lay awake that night, Sebastian’s mind continued to wander, meandering aimlessly in circles. His thoughts spiraled inwards, retracing all the same paths he had brushed upon so many times before, until, soaked in tiredness, his thoughts finally stumbled onto the one topic which he had been most of all avoiding.

For the truth was that Sebastian was not much used to interpreting his own feelings towards people; most of the time, they were simple, one-dimensional emotions that required little analysis or introspection. Towards the old King, he had always felt a filial, loyal affection. For the Head of the Guard, he had an instinctive, tapered dislike. Towards Cyrus, he harbored a largely apathetic respect.

To the stable boy with whom four summers ago he had stolen a rare few blissful months, Sebastian had perhaps felt the closest thing to complexity in his emotions, but even then, it had not in actuality been so complicated – a heady mixture of attraction and infatuation and novelty, coming into bloom for the first time in his life and then, a few months later, passing just as quickly, as he came to realize that the risks of their rendezvous far outweighed the pleasures.

Since then, he had not particularly allowed himself to dwell much on emotions – particularly on those emotions that might warrant punishment. Dwelling on them was tantamount to encouraging them, and so for the most part he managed to avoid those cruel and dangerous heartbreaks that so often befell men with the same inclinations.

But suddenly things were no longer simple, because with the new King, he found himself against all better judgment experiencing a profusion of emotions that he could not even begin to untangle or deconstruct. Respect, for his independence; irritation, for his superiority; admiration, for his intelligence – these were just the superficial few that Sebastian could grasp at, from the very top of all the inscrutable knots.

And only the night before, when Sebastian had been certain that the only things he was and could be feeling with the King were frustration and disappointment, all it had taken was one glimpse of the King’s unguarded weariness, and suddenly Sebastian had been overtaken with the burning wish that he and the King were comrades – that he might be allowed to pull up a chair beside him, share a pint and a place at the fire, speak to him without pretense or urgency – call him something other than ‘my Liege.’

He had been struck, not just by the boldness of this wish, but by the irrational urge he had had even then to act upon it, regardless of current status and repercussions – to offer himself, not as a Guard or ally, but as simply a friend, to a man who could and would have none.

But still the rational part of Sebastian had remained, the one which told him quite firmly that they were not comrades, him and the King, and, perhaps more importantly, that they never would be.

And as he lay there, trying to coax sleep from the uncaring darkness, he knew that he did not wish to dissect this strange sense of kinship, the unprecedented pull he felt towards the King, the way he could now perfectly visualize him in his mind’s eye with a practiced ease – the bitter truth that sat at the heart of that tangled, pulsing knot of his emotions.

He instead told himself that his affections for the father were responsible for these strange familiarities, and did not for a moment believe his own words, even as he drifted into sleep’s oblivion.

* * *

The sun baked into Sebastian’s back through his shirt, having made a stalwart reappearance for the first time after months of wintry chill. He didn’t bother to wipe at the sweat that had begun burrowing into his forehead, hands full with the stack of catalogued gleaming shields he had just lifted from the crate. He handed them off to the waiting Guards at his right, who set off on a trot towards the Palace Armory.

The Guards that had been lounging off-duty had been shepherded by Cyrus’s stern orders to the yard, where the first wave of new shipments for replenishing the Palace Armory had greeted them in rows of squat, unfriendly crates. While they worked in the yard, another share of off-duty Guards were in the Armory, sorting through the supplies and weaponry, into those that were usable, those that were battered enough to be donated as training materials, and those that were worthless altogether.

Sebastian did not for certain know the origin of this abrupt directive to resupply the Armory, which had become sallow with disuse from decades of peace beneath the former King, but he did not like the fact that the order had seemed to come directly after the King’s departure.

Why the Chancellor would seize this opportunity to restock the Royal Army’s access to weaponry was not a question to which Sebastian could find a particularly pleasant answer, and he wondered if this was but a branch of the very scheme that the King was looking to uncover with his absence.

All the same, though he could have done without the newly blistering sun, Sebastian found himself grateful nonetheless for the distraction that the tedious labor provided. It was something tangible to finally occupy his restless hands, particularly necessary now, as his mind began to wind its way in jittery circles. The end of the second week since the King’s departure was nearing its close, and the delivery of the information that the King had so assuredly promised by this time had not yet come to pass.

A bitter voice at the back of his head had begun to needle him the past few days. _Perhaps no one will contact you,_ it would murmur tritely. _Perhaps he only said these things to quell your protests at being left behind. Perhaps you’ve been burdened with a fool’s errand, kept out of the way._

The voice simultaneously unsettled and irritated Sebastian – part of him could not yet separate the cool, haughty persona the King wore from the somewhat kinder one he had fleetingly glimpsed underneath, and instinctively crept up in Sebastian the fear that he had fallen prey to yet another trick, just another meaningless gear in the King’s careful clockwork plans.

And yet, on the other hand, Sebastian had resolved that he would trust the King’s judgment, that he would begin to practice the patience in which he seemed to be so profoundly lacking, and he was irritated at himself for allowing qualms and questions to creep back in so swiftly.

So as he worked beneath the steady heat, his mind alternated between nursing these doubts and shunning them, and when he shunned them, he chose instead to focus on the blister of the sun on his neck, or to speculate on the progress of the King’s journey. He would be close to Marsek by now, the King and his Brigade, only a week or so away. Sebastian could not help but wonder what state of mind the King was in at that moment – if he was reclining comfortably in his carriage, more certain than ever in his own plans, or if he was being rocked by the first hints of unease, sprouting tiny seedlings of doubt.

The first two weeks of the King’s absence had passed with little fanfare or excitement for Sebastian. Though he applied himself to observing those around him, just as he had been instructed, there was little new information he had gleaned, aside from the restocking of the Armory. It was true that the Head of the Guard seemed in a fouler mood than usual, and the Chancellor led the advisory meetings with ever increasing relish, but little else of note had taken place.

The King had been right in assuming that long before last night’s meeting, Sebastian had already begun labeling the men around him, separating them, sometimes unconsciously, into those likely to support the Chancellor, and those that might prove sympathetic to the King.

In the past two weeks, these coarse lists had remained largely unchanged. Brutish Orin still appeared to Sebastian to be little more than a guileless mimic, easily swayed to violence and easily swayed to support whoever seemed to be in greatest power. In contrast, the Head of the Guard remained oily and conniving, spoke frequently of the King’s failings over dinner, and was almost certainly the Chancellor’s watchdog; and Arthur, similarly crude and unpleasant, sat always at his side, parroting his words and laughter.

Cyrus was not as straightforward to read, but he had had good blood with the previous King, and Sebastian thought he recognized in him a fairness and loyalty that, if hard-won, would prove unyielding once bestowed.

As for the rest of the Guards, there were was always a certain measure that crowded on the Head’s side of the table, laughing uproariously at his witticisms over meals, but this was, from what Sebastian gathered, more out of desperation to ingratiate themselves with their commander than from genuine loyalty. The vast majority of the Guards, however, remained determinedly apolitical; they made fun of the King over quick snatches of conversation between shifts and over meals, but they similarly mocked the Chancellor, and the Ministers – anyone, really, who they thought to be too intellectual or whose purpose was too high above the reaches of their comprehension.

The most difficult to read by far was Septimus, who spoke little and whose expressions betrayed even less (in that way, he and the King could be kin). But beneath the calmness rippled hints of an incipient strength, a bountiful well of discipline and morality that Sebastian thought could be tapped to make for a powerful ally, if only Septimus saw the new King as a worthy cause.

And yet none of this seemed particularly useful to Sebastian, for they were only suppositions, estimations, guesswork, and he could not evade the sense that there was something more meaningful that he was meant to be doing – some campaign which might begin to sway others to the King’s favor. However, subtlety had never been touted as Sebastian’s strong suit, and he could think of no elegant or surreptitious way to set about it; and again, he admitted begrudging marvel at the way the King’s mind worked, crafting solutions with purposes so unclear that they were yet an enigma to Sebastian.

As he worked open the next crate, he was brought out of his thoughts by someone knocking into his shoulders, pausing but a moment to regain balance before dashing on without apology. He turned, just in time to see a slight figure dressed in brown and grey hurrying through the yard, towards the stables housing the purebred horses.

Orin grunted fractiously behind him. “Bloody runts. Those stable boys, they’re all given too little work, and no proper training, and what comes of it? They run amuck, getting underfoot, always playing their juvenile games.” He continued to mutter under his breath rancidly while stacking armor plates.

Sebastian felt this speech rather rich coming from a man who had spent the previous night chugging ale and roaring raucously over card games and dirty shanties, but this thought passed through Sebastian’s head superficially, for in truth, he was already lowering his hand to feel at what the passing figure had just slipped into his pocket.

It was a note.

His heart beginning to beat soundly in his chest, he gave a final jolt with the bar to work the lid from the crate, and on the pretense of bending over to set the lid down, he yanked the note swiftly from his pocket, giving it a cursory glance before once more removing it from view.

_Burn stables, ten minutes,_ it had read, in unfamiliar handwriting.

He straightened to see no one paying him any particular attention, all bent to their respective tasks, all passersby who walked through the yard striding purposefully to their destinations or engrossed in conversations.

Sebastian allowed what he counted as close to five minutes to pass, before setting down his tools and stretching out leisurely, hands pulled tight above his head as he arched his back.

“You’d think they’d hire some of the town vagrants for this drudgework,” he said loftily to Orin, who hardly needed the opening provocation. He set down his load abruptly, cheeks that were already crimson with heat growing even redder.

“It’s purely disrespect, is what it is!” Orin said indignantly, disgruntlement twisting his round face. “We train, we learn swordwork, we are the finest trained in all of Brenrose, and they make us unpack crates like common street urchins!”

“Well, I’m meant to be off my shift right now,” Sebastian said with practiced disdain, “and back on for the night soon enough, and so damn all these endless crates. I’m going to get some rest.”

Orin gaped at him like a fish, gulping noiselessly as his brain worked on the repercussions for following Sebastian’s lead. In the end, he set his mouth unhappily and bent back to his work, as Sebastian had known he would; Orin had a heavy fear of being reprimanded for misbehavior, but now if someone were to ask where Sebastian was, there would be a viable answer – and no decent Guard would begrudge him rest before a night shift.

As he made his way out of the yard, his walk was purposeful but leisurely, until he turned behind the stables and knew that he was out of sight of all the Guards.

The Burn stables, aptly named after the fire that had rendered them unusable some years back, now stood largely abandoned, and, much like the West wing, were now repurposed as transient or surplus storage. Gaping holes that had never been repatched still remained, and scorch marks littered the walls, but it provided sufficient protection from the elements for rarely used bulk items or as a covering of nighttime trysts.

It was to them that Sebastian made his way now, but not without making certain that no one was watching his progress. He paused just outside the main entrance, leaning against the wall and listening intently for any sounds from within. He heard none.

He slipped inside, scanning his eyes over the area’s many hiding places, and though he could not have said why, his eyes lingered on a corner doused in shadows and overlaid with worn saddles. He blinked again, and found there was truth in Cyrus’s adage that one should always trust his instincts, for his eyes, beginning to adjust to the meager light, could now make out a form among the darkness.

He approached the figure, slowly, so as to give them time to dart out of the shadows and make their escape if they were merely there by happenstance. But the figure remained where it was, silent, and as he came closer, he could now more clearly see that the frame was that of a young man, standing in such a place that the shadows just hid his face from view.

“Yes?” Sebastian braved the silence. He was fairly certain that this person was young, and he was entertaining the idea that it was yet another messenger boy, sent with yet another cryptic message and meeting time.

The figure made no motion or sound, and Sebastian felt impatience stir inside of him; Cyrus might come by any minute in the yard and notice his absence.

“Step forward, boy,” he said, and, in case this was no ally at all, let his hand brush the top of his hilt in warning, though the man’s frame was slighter than his, and seemingly unarmed.

The young man obeyed without hesitation, stepping into where the light played its bright shapes through the stable’s splintering walls. He looked young enough, shoulders hunched in on himself in a languorous slouch, working cap pulled stiffly down over his forehead. A neckerchief tied behind his head obscured most of his face, stretched from the nose down, similar to ones worn by many of the stable boys to combat the hours of dust their work entailed.

His clothes were as many a stable boy would wear, a working tunic over linen leggings, and yet something protested in the peripheries of Sebastian’s mind, something rebelling against the idea that this was a stable boy standing before him.

And then the young man unhunched himself, shoulders straightening into the proud, prim posture with which Sebastian had become acquainted only too well in recent months, and by the time he pulled down the neckerchief, Sebastian already felt himself a fool.

“Now, Sebastian,” the King said softly, with a half-smirk playing on his lips, “Is ‘boy’ any way to address your Liege?”


	6. A Trick

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hello, everyone :) I’m sorry I haven’t posted in so long, but things have been quite busy for some time now, and the writing gods have not been kindly of late.  
> I know that since it’s been so long, there’s probably a fair amount of plot points that are no longer remembered (again, mea culpa), but hopefully the general gist of this chapter should still carry through, finer details aside.  
> I wish I could say a definite time when the next chapter will be done, but I honestly have no idea (I have started it, but unfortunately, that doesn’t always count for much :o ).  
> Regardless, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy this long-delayed installment!

_“ ‘You do not entertain me,’ declared the cruel King to the Fool, who had just finished his merry song. ‘You have not made me laugh.’_

_‘Your Highness, the song was but a shadow of what is to come. I have planned a surprise for you, a surprise so grand, so unexpected, that you will have no power of speech to express your shock.’_

_The mean King laughed, tugging at his grey beard. ‘You are but a lowly Fool. What surprise could you have prepared?’_

_‘A grand surprise,’ the Fool nevertheless insisted. ‘And if you are as surprised as I tell you that you shall be, you may give me your kingdom.’_

_Silence followed his words, before the King burst once more into laughter, and the remainder of the court followed suit. ‘Very well, Fool,’ he smiled, revealing jagged, yellow teeth. ‘If I am indeed so surprised that I lose my power of speech, you may have my kingdom.’_

_And then the Fool bowed, and as he bowed, he removed his jester mask, and to the whole court it was revealed that he was in fact no Fool at all, but the wise Prince himself, still thought to be dead by all. For the Prince had escaped the clutches of death, with the enchanted aid of the Princess, but had hidden away so only a trusted few knew his secret. He and the Fool had traded places to trick the evil King, so that the Prince might enter the court unobserved._

_‘Seize him,’ the King screamed – or tried to scream, for his lips moved with no sound, and as his goblet fell to the floor, it glowed with enchantment – enchantment that the poor imprisoned Princess had served to the King especially, to rid him of his voice._

_‘It is as I said,’ the Prince announced. ‘You are rendered speechless by my surprise. And now I shall reclaim my rightful kingdom.’ ”_

\- an excerpt from an Aldeion fable, told many times by the Queen to her son while she was still alive, so that he might grow familiar with her homeland’s heritage

**Chapter Six: A Trick**

For the briefest of moments, Sebastian had the instinct to step forward and envelop the King in a embrace. But even if it was true that the formal boundaries of Guard and King had already been discarded between them, their relationship had hardly yet reached such familiarity, and Sebastian, who had never before found himself inclined towards displays of affection, had to wonder at himself for having such an impulse.

But something in the way that the King was smiling crookedly at him now, cap scrunched in his hand, like he himself was both proud and giddy with his own daring, was washing away any resentment that Sebastian had directed the King’s way over the past weeks. It was a rare moment of unguardedness for the King, and Sebastian did not know whether this new sincerity was from the suspense of that moment or from his slowly growing familiarity with Sebastian, but despite himself, he was finding the excited flush of the King’s cheeks and the twinkling gleam in his eyes to be unfairly infectious.

“I don’t understand,” Sebastian settled on saying, mouth curling without his consent into a warm smile. “How are you here? The trip to Marsek – ”

“– is still well under way,” the King completed, cheeks glowing with a ruddiness that came from exertion and time spent outdoors. “The congregation should be arriving there in a week or so.”

“But – how did you manage to leave?”

The King stepped back, beginning to pace the length of the barn, as if he were finding it difficult to remain still as they talked. “Well, suppose it is like this: a King and his esquire embark on a journey. A few days in, the King discovers that some vital documents have inadvertently been brought along, sensitive documents that must at once be returned for safekeeping to the palace. The King only trusts his esquire to carry out such a task, and so the esquire takes supplies and one of the horses and rides back to the palace. A few days pass without the esquire’s return, and finally, rather than halting the journey, the King decides he shall travel on without his esquire’s presence to Marsek.”

The King stopped, turning a keen gaze on Sebastian almost expectantly, as if to gauge Sebastian’s reaction to his words.

“You switched places,” Sebastian said slowly, and the King nodded, eyes still glittering with residual exhilaration. “But how could they – ”

“The only servant I took was Henry – that is not so unusual for such trips; after all, the lighter the party, the quicker the travel. But my protection – this was where I could not help but stray from custom, for I could not have men who knew my face.”

It was starting to dawn on Sebastian how carefully woven all of the King’s steps were, and how clear the picture became once the threads were pulled tight. “So you took the Brigade instead of the Royal Guard,” he completed, trying to ignore his instinctive frustration at being continually not just one, but several steps behind the King’s planning. “So that no one in the congregation would know how you looked.”

The King nodded, mouth raised in his odd little half-smile. “All they saw for the brief minute it took to board the carriage were two young boys, one in royal garb, one in an esquire’s dress. The Chancellor sees me off, knows I am aboard the carriage. But as the journey continues, it is my face the Brigade see in esquire’s dress, and when I departed a few days later, they suspected nothing.”

Sebastian followed the train of thought to its logical conclusion while the King began to toe at the loose hay beneath their feet. “But once they reach Marsek, Henry will have to continue the façade. He shall have to act as King with the Marski government.”

The King waved a dismissive hand. “Marsek is of little concern. The Ministers touting its importance are simply too fond of listening to their own voices. Small uprisings such as Marsek most often end up dissolving back into their original kingdoms without a stable government to sustain themselves.

“However,” the King raised a single finger as he sat down on an overturned crate, “when there began talk of sending an envoy, it seemed the perfect opportunity to observe the Chancellor from afar without arousing any suspicion, and so I took it.” He placed his elbows on his knees and leaned on them, hands clasped. “Henry shall be fine in my place. The documents of peace are already drawn up, and having grown up close to my side, he is made largely as familiar with royal customs as I am.”

Absently, Sebastian took a seat on a second crate at hand beside him, his mind still racing to catch up as he turned over each new development. “Couldn’t you have chosen someone else to observe the Chancellor?”

The King brushed some stray flax from his pant leg delicately and fixed Sebastian with a wry, somewhat rueful expression, as if to acknowledge that present circumstances were far from ideal.

“It is a great risk, yes,” he said, addressing Sebastian’s unvoiced concern with a tilt of his head. “But some things I need to see with my own eyes – there are undercurrents, political gestures, implications, that might be missed or discarded by one less attuned to these things, but which might prove to be vital to me. Even if he believes me absent, the Chancellor will not be careless with his arrangements; he has too much depending on a smooth execution of his preparations to act too indiscreetly now.”

The King ran a careless hand through his hair as he frowned at the straw-littered ground in front of him. “One of the few things playing to my favor in all this is that he must be as careful as I with whom he trusts, for he does not know for certain who has pledged their allegiance to me, any more than I know who has pledged their allegiance to him.” The King paused, a short sigh escaping him. “You know, Sebastian, at times, I think that that might be the _only_ thing playing to my advantage.”

The last words were spoken with a tinge of bitterness, and with them Sebastian could see a weariness spilling once more across the King’s face, just as he had glimpsed two weeks before. But this time no effort was made in concealing it, or tucking it neatly behind a mask of composure. The King met Sebastian’s eyes resolutely, his crystal-cut blue glimmering openly with uncertainty, as if fully aware of the vulnerability he was displaying in that moment.

Once more Sebastian felt the sharp pang of longing – to be comrades, to extend reassurance, a reach of the hand, a brush of his arm; already, he and the King were sat side by side, as if no social barrier between them existed, and the impropriety of this had not even occurred to Sebastian until that moment. It was this realization that forced Sebastian instantly into self-consciousness, as if his thoughts had somehow been projected into the air around them, and he swallowed, extending to the King instead only a hesitant smile.

“Surely circumstances are not all so dire?” he asked, trying to inject his voice with some levity, but finding instead that it sounded slightly skeptical. “Your father… he must have had his fair share of allies?”

The King returned Sebastian’s smile with a fraction of his, corners of his mouth curling up slightly, but his eyes remained stormy. “Yes, he did. And I have had many Ministers and Nobles seek private counsel with me in the past months, to assure me of their loyalty to my rule, of their respect for my father. But discerning which are sincere and which are false – well, I cannot send all of them entrapping offers from the Chancellor, as I did with you, particularly the ones already in his pocket. I have attempted to divulge certain information to each of them, to see which gets back to the Chancellor’s ears, but they speak amongst themselves as well, and it quickly becomes a messy business – not elegant in the slightest, unfortunately.”

The disdain with which the King said this last part, nose scrunching slightly in disapproval, was enough to show that he required of himself extreme precision for all his plans, and Sebastian’s mind flitted back briefly to the neatly parallel stacks of books on all the surfaces of the King’s chambers.

“How – how many are loyal to you, then, exactly?” Sebastian finally asked, unsure if he wanted to know the answer. They had made a passing jest of it before, the lack of powerful allies in the King’s corner, but Sebastian was now beginning to suspect that there had perhaps been, not just a little, but much truth in these quips; the King’s responding expression now did not persuade him otherwise.

“It is not just you and Henry, if that is what you are concerned about,” he said, with a momentarily wry smile before sobering again. “There are a few Ministers, a few from among the palace’s inhabitants, some from the court, sparingly – none that I fully trust, but I expect I never will fully trust any of them. Those with power tend to always first and foremost serve their own ends. Certainly, there are none that I would entrust with _this_ ,” he said, with a hand waved to indicate his own guise. 

“And when there are so few allies to choose from,” he continued, “– well, it is much like a game of sep-Pach – too many spaces, too few pieces; if you sacrifice all of them at once, there is no chance of winning. And so best that I take this on myself, this early on, at least, so I do not unduly sacrifice any of my players… including you, Sebastian."

As childish as it was, Sebastian could not prevent the tiny burst of pride that bloomed unexpectedly in his stomach at the words, for despite all of the inaction he had resented the past few weeks, knowing that the King actually catalogued him with his other assets went a long way to erasing Sebastian’s sense of ineffectualness.

Sebastian bit back his desire to smile, schooling his face instead into solemnity. “I loathe to alarm you, my Liege…” He paused, waiting for the King to lift his eyes again at Sebastian’s suddenly grave tone, “…but as a child I was always rather terrible at sep-Pach. I’m afraid I found it dreadfully boring.”

Sebastian kept his solemn expression a few moments longer before allowing a half-smirk to break through. As he had hoped, the tension in the King’s face relaxed for a moment, and his eyes crinkled slightly as a smile tugged at his mouth’s corner.

“Well, it is lucky, then, Sebastian,” he replied, his words colored in a teasing lilt, eyes glinting playfully, “that you are not the one I am placing in command of the pieces.”

“I suppose it is,” Sebastian agreed, allowing a more genuine smile to play across his features. He had not yet grown used to these dips into lightness, these harbingers of friendship, that would spring up unexpectedly between the two of them; he was still wary of misinterpreting them, afraid of misjudging, always uncertain on how and if to protract them.

And while he thought all this, still neither of them spoke, and still their gazes remained locked, and all of a sudden, it was too easy to believe that the King was not a King at all, but a young, pretty boy, with glass-blue eyes and a sweet, clever smile. And just like that, the air between them now felt fraught, charged – the gaze had gone on for too long, Sebastian was certain, his tongue had deserted him, and he could feel the redness seeping into his neck and face. It was all proving too simple, too tempting, to fall into this sort of familiarity, and all the more dangerous because of the ease.

Some of his thoughts must have flitted across Sebastian’s face, for the King’s smile pulled back into puzzlement, an eyebrow lifting in question. Sebastian could think of nothing to do except jerk his eyes away, planting them firmly on his own hands.

“I shall be missed soon,” he said gruffly, in a voice that was too sharp and too harsh even in his own ears.

He winced internally, but if the King noticed the curtness of Sebastian’s tone, the only sign he gave was taking perhaps a beat too long to reply, for when he spoke, his own voice had returned to its usual wryness.

“Well, best that we conclude this reunion, then, isn’t it?” He pushed himself to standing, bending to retrieve his cap from the floor. Sebastian jerked to his feet as well, and though he turned to face the King, he determinedly avoided his eyes.

“If I require anything, I will find a way to make myself known to you,” the King said as he fitted the cap back on his head. “Let us say our meeting place, unless there is indication otherwise, shall be an hour past nightfall in these stables.” The King’s tone was now lighter, more open than it had ever been with him before, and paradoxically, Sebastian wished for a return of the cool officiousness from their previous encounters.

“And while I am dressed in this way,” the King continued, unaware, it seemed, of Sebastian’s thoughts, “I think it is best if you do not use my formal address. For now, call me Rienne – I shall explain the meaning of the name another time.”

Sebastian finally attempted a lazy, unconcerned smirk. “I look forward to it, _Rienne_ ,” he said, his tongue not quite catching the delicate accent with which the King had pronounced the name. He still wanted to ask a great many things before the meeting came to an end – he wanted to know where the King would be staying, he wanted to know if he had a second guise for sneaking around the palace, he wanted to know if he had traveled on horseback alone and unprotected the few days it had taken to make the return journey.

But none of them reached his lips. He finally brought himself to meet the King’s eyes, just as the King tugged the handkerchief up over his nose.

“Remember, Sebastian,” the King said, voice and expression dropping into seriousness, “nothing to draw attention to yourself, and err always on the side of caution.” He briefly placed a hand on Sebastian’s arm, a gesture whose propriety Sebastian himself had been wrestling with only minutes before, and which belied no similar debate on the King’s part.

His hand dropped away, and he took a step back. “In a week’s time, then, Sebastian. Best of luck.” The King nodded once, as if to give reassurance and, turning on his heel, he slipped out of the stables.

It was only as he watched the King’s shadow disappear into the sunlit noon that Sebastian realized he hadn’t had the chance to wish him luck in return.

* * *

Una Minor wore the blank, stoic expression of one who had long ago learned to bury all emotions deep in her heart, far below the canvas of her face. Her raven hair fell like sheaths around her cheeks, her head tilted slightly forward as she listened to the Chancellor.

The Chancellor was leaned towards her, speaking unhurriedly in a low tone, his manner relaxed and familiar; he had been there as Vice Minister, after all, when she and her brother had first come to the Palace to take on positions as Lessers, at the traditional age of seventeen. It was said that he had taken an obvious shine to her and her brother from the very beginning, and the general whispered opinion was that their selection as the new Minors had had much to do with his favor.

All of this Sebastian knew only from servant gossip, for they had already long been Minors when he had first been brought to the Palace himself, a scraggly boy of nine, too awed and bewildered at his strange turn of fortune to take any of the novel things before him too seriously.

Tonight was his first time assigned to the Chancellor’s guard since the congregation had left for Marsek, and only a few days since his reunion with the King. From the moment he’d stepped into his shift, Sebastian had assumed his practiced indifference, gaze trained stolidly ahead, but all the while letting his eyes flick discreetly to the interactions of the Chancellor and the Minors.

The unexpected reunion had left him with a strange taste in his mouth. On the one hand, Sebastian felt himself imbued with renewed purpose and resolve, for here, finally, was a secret that he and the King shared, a secret he had been trusted to keep and safeguard. There was a sense of collusion, a sense of superiority borne of the Chancellor’s obliviousness, there were steps set into motion that this powerful, treacherous man could not foresee, but to which Sebastian had and would now be privy.

Despite no actual signs of him, Sebastian had begun to almost always feel the King’s presence near, as if he were hovering somewhere just of reach: the tiniest dart of a shadow, the smallest ripple of a curtain, a bowed servant’s head scurrying past – all of them sent an instant thrum down Sebastian’s spine, a reminder somehow of the King’s watchful gaze.

And tonight was no different, for even as his eyes swept the room in seemingly mindless indifference, even as his gaze stayed a beat longer on the Chancellor and the Minors, he was also unconsciously seeking out any sign, any whisper of the King, and when he inevitably found none, Sebastian found that he was at once relieved and disappointed.

But there was another consequence of the reunion as well, for at the back of his mind, Sebastian was still reliving that moment in the stables – that moment that had been inconsequential, and yet profoundly consequential nevertheless, for he could no longer deny, at least to himself, the attraction that he felt for the King.

It was true that the King was not traditionally handsome – there was nothing of the sturdy build or stock to which Sebastian usually found himself drawn, none of the strength or ruggedness. His beauty was altogether of an otherworldly, ethereal sort – it defied Sebastian’s knowledge of himself, that he had been so entirely drawn to this boy, whose skin was milk ivory, whose eyes were a gleaming opal, whose face betrayed his cunning intelligence, if one only knew where to look for it.

Of course, he had seen him before he had become King, that almost forgotten time not too long ago when he had been only Prince – glimpsed him, to be more precise, for his father had been extremely vigilant with whom he allowed close to his son. Sebastian remembered hearing the whispers through the halls, that son and father were too disparate from one another, that the Queen had borne a false heir. These whispers had stopped when the old King died and his son had assumed the crown (or at the very least they had stopped reaching Sebastian’s ears).

But try as he might, Sebastian could not recall having his own opinion of him back then – the Prince had been too distant, too abstract a concern for him. And after all, no one had expected him to assume the throne so soon in his young life.

But now, of course, it was all different. No longer Prince, the young King was not abstract anymore, nor was he distant. And though so little time had passed, there was now no ignoring the draw towards him that Sebastian felt, almost instinctively – towards his cleverness and his wit, towards his complete contradiction of everything Sebastian had expected from him.

The only comfort Sebastian could glean now was in the knowledge that it was still no more than a fleeting attraction – he recognized the symptoms of it, for he had experienced such infatuations before, and he also knew that they usually dissipated of their own accord, often with as little fanfare or reason as had preceded their initial development. And he was aware of it, now, so he might stem it, curtail it, make certain it did not grow into anything more serious.

And the first step towards this end would be to cease his habit of endlessly examining and dwelling on these feelings. With effort, Sebastian forced his thoughts back to the present, where the discourse between Una Minor and the Chancellor was still carrying on in full lilt. The brother Anu Minor had been seated on the Chancellor’s other side, and his eyes darted sideways every few moments, as if he were unsure whether or not he was allowed to join in the conversation.

The coloring and features that made such a striking image of his sister fell less favorably onto Anu Minor’s own frame – the ivory paleness gleamed instead as an unhealthy sallowness, his raven eyes were sunk too deep below his brow, and his dark hair, which was pulled back tightly against his skull, hung thinly on his neck.

The Chancellor paused in his discourse to take an ungainly mouthful of his rhubarb and honeysuckle nectar, poorly concealing the resulting grimace; Sebastian supposed he was much more used to taking his dinner with mulled wine, but it was customary that when the Minors were invited to dinner at the palace, the entire household should similarly abstain from alcohol.

Una Minor’s lips pulled back into a tight smile, teeth glinting fiercely in the candlelight, as she took a sip from her own goblet and replied something softly, head bowing. Anu Minor craned his neck, finally succumbing to his curiosity to join their conversation.

From where he was stationed, there was no way for Sebastian to make out the words spoken above the din of the others who dined around them, but he could at least watch the expressions that played across their faces. The Chancellor’s smile was sticky and forced, his eyes squinting in genuflection - it struck Sebastian that he wanted something, and wanted it terribly, and most of all was afraid of letting that desire be seen. His conversation with Una Minor seemed to be a patter of cajoling and convincing; many times he reached out to touch her, many times he bent his head earnestly towards her, as if in supplication. At one point he gestured around at the room, sneering broadly as he spoke.

Una Minor’s expression rarely gave way into any visible emotion. She listened, and she nodded, and she murmured words here and there, but Sebastian could not tell if she was giving the Chancellor any leeway on his request, whatever it was. Her brother, meanwhile, had plastered a mask of stoic patience onto his face, which did a poor job of concealing his dissatisfaction. Anu Minor, Sebastian had heard (and now had confirmed for himself), did not much like the Chancellor.

For all the sister’s enigmatic beauty, this lone fact already put her brother in a much higher regard within Sebastian’s mind.

Finally, as dinner began to wind down, a lull came to the discourse, a vague air of finality settling between the three of them. The Chancellor swilled his nectar, Una Minor picked unconcernedly at the food before her, and her brother stared blankly ahead, lost in abstraction.

From what Sebastian could tell, the Chancellor appeared not particularly satisfied, but not particularly disheartened, either. Sebastian was beginning to suspect that tonight’s conversation was but a brief excerpt of a longer, ongoing persuasion that the Chancellor was exacting on the Minors; if Sebastian had to guess, he would say that perhaps he was attempting to convince them of the advantage of forging an alliance with him, but proceeding slowly, laying out a stable foundation for his proposition. So that meant that the alliance was not crucial for him, at least not yet, but something he would need for the future.

Sebastian was not heartened by the fact that the Chancellor foresaw a need to involve the Church in these politics; as sacrosanct and removed from governing as the Church claimed to be, they put little effort in maintaining the illusion that they were not an immeasurably powerful entity, with extensive sway over the opinions of the masses. He wondered if the King was aware of the Chancellor’s motions to the Minors, and whether or not he already knew of the greater purpose the Chancellor bore in mind.

Finally, the three of them set down the last of their tableware and rose, shaking the napkins from their laps. The Chancellor proffered his arm to Una, which she accepted, and they turned from the table to make their way from the dining chambers, with the guards that flanked the doors of their exit following them out.

Sebastian watched them leave from the corner of his eye, knowing that it marked the end of the evening’s excitement, and not even a particularly high excitement at that. He would need to stay, of course, until the lesser ranking parties finished all their dinners and banters as well, but none of tonight’s other guests of the Chancellor were of particular interest to him. It was a shame, really, that political intrigue was proving to be a much more tedious activity than he would have initially assumed.

Ignoring the patter of voices, Sebastian allowed his mind to wander for the remainder of the shift, and if it just so happened that his thoughts more than once stumbled unbidden upon the King, he could at least say that he always swift in correcting them.


End file.
